


Brief Hours and Weeks

by AMarguerite



Series: An Ever-Fixed Mark [4]
Category: Pride and Prejudice & Related Fandoms, Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: F/F, F/M, Laudanum, M/M, Napoleonic Wars, Outtakes, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, badass Elizabeth Bennet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2018-09-21 06:59:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 56,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9536942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMarguerite/pseuds/AMarguerite
Summary: Outtakes from the "Ever-Fixed Mark" universe, currently featuring Colonel and Mrs. Fitzwilliam facing the day-long ceremony which turned plain old General Sir Arthur Wellesley into the Duke of Wellington; Elizabeth and Darcy confronting Lady Catherine's bathing machine; Darcy's POV on a pivotal scene in chapter 12; Elizabeth's Great Escape from the French in 1813; Mary Crawford needling Darcy at a ball;  Darcy's POV on a pivotal scene in chapter 14; Mr. Darcy meeting Lord Byron; The Grim and Inexplicable Courtship of Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Elliot; some Colonel Fitzwilliam/ Elizabeth fluff; the first meeting between Richard Fitzwilliam and Benet Pascal; the first meeting between Lady Marjorie Spencer and Julian Fitzwilliam, the viscount Stornoway; a Darcy/Eliza Williams coda to 'That Looks on Tempests'; a WWII AU' and now, Colonel and Mrs. Fitzwilliam's wedding night.Please note that chapter 15 is EXPLICIT!More to come, and feel free to request things!





	1. In which Wellington is too accomplished

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Sunfreckle, who wanted something happy after the aftermath of chapter 10, and inspired by Liz, who pointed out I'd gotten the Duke of Wellington's titles wrong, and ought to do an outtake where he was awarded all of them in one day.

_1\. Sir Arthur Wellsley_

Elizabeth was already in a fractious mood when they arrived at St. James’s Court for the daylong ceremony that would transform General Sir Arthur Wellesley from a mere knight to the grand figure of the Duke of Wellington. Though the Channel crossing from France to England was much shorter and much better than the one from Portugal to England, Elizabeth had still been seasick the entire time. Then, too, she had been forced to spend more of her pin money than she really wanted on a new court dress. She had a perfectly serviceable court dress she had bought in Paris and only worn once before, but when she proposed to wear it a second time, to St. James’s Court (a place, she took pains to point out, where no one had seen it) her husband had winced, and her sister-in-law Lady Stornoway had looked alarmed.

It was apparently the height of rudeness not to wear a new, very expensive, very uncomfortable gown to stand in a crowd where she could neither hear nor see anything, and where she could neither be seen nor be heard.

Colonel Fitzwilliam’s scruples had at least been patriotic in nature: it would cause comment if Mrs. Fitzwilliam, wife of a veteran (and a veteran herself) of the Spanish Campaign, appeared in a French gown at the British court. The French court had been blessed with the Empress Josephine, who, though requiring the same long train and headdress of shoulder-length lace and white feathers as all the other royal courts, realized that high-waisted gowns looked ridiculous with hoops. The British court had to make do with Queen Charlotte, who insisted that any lady in her presence ought to wear hoops, end of story. As a result, it was very obvious who had designed Elizabeth’s first court gown; it might as well have had a tricolor in place of the band of embroidered roses at the waistline.

Though Elizabeth found this a ridiculous objection, it was the sort of ridiculousness that passed for logic in English high society. And so she stood quietly shifting her weight from one white kid slippered foot to the other, under a new hoop and a stiff new petticoat of white satin embroidered with a pattern of silver laurels. The hoop had an unfortunate habit of swaying long after she had stopped moving, setting the white satin and silver lama gown draped over it to whispering, as if trying to alert everyone at court that Mrs. Fitzwilliam could not keep still.

She had been to court only once before-- Marjorie had presented her shortly after she had been married (two hours of dressing, followed by two hours of standing, ending in two seconds of conversation with the Queen, after which Elizabeth had had to walk backwards, without tripping over her long train or her hoops)-- and wondered, based on these two very taxing experiences, why on earth Sir William Lucas had ever spoken of St. James’s Court with pleasure.

Colonel Fitzwilliam stood beside her at military attention, looking quite dashing and comfortable in his best dress uniform. If it hadn’t been for his rather vacant expression, and the way he was absently tapping out the rhythm to “Non più andrai,” from _Le Nozze di Figaro_ on the pommel of his dress sword, no one would have known he was as bored as his wife.

Colonel Kirke shifted and said, out of the corner of his mouth, “Mrs. Fitz, how long is this supposed to take?”

She raised her fan, so she would not be seen speaking, “All day, I heard.”

Mrs. Kirke, trying to surreptitiously poke a drooping ostrich feather upright, whipped her head around quickly enough to smack her husband in the face with her court lappet of Brussels lace. “Say it ain’t so, Mrs. Fitz.”

Elizabeth glanced appealingly up at her husband.

“Why look at me, my dear?” he whispered. “I’m hardly a courtier.”   

“You were born into these circles,” said Elizabeth.

Colonel Fitzwilliam made a half-hearted protest, but admitted he was. Elizabeth was willing to bet his primer had gone “B is for Baron, C is for Count, D is for Duke, E is for Earl.” “Just how many titles are there between knight and Duke?”

“Five.”

The Kirkes looked almost comically dismayed. “Five?”

“He must be first made Baron Duoro of Wellesley, then Viscount Wellington of Talavera, then the Earl of Wellington, then the Marquess of Wellington, then the Duke of Wellington.”

“He couldn’t be made all of those at the same time?” asked Mrs. Kirke.

Colonel Fitzwilliam slightly shook his head.

“-- the Baron Duroro!” announced the Lord Chamberlain.

Everyone took the opportunity not just to clap, but to surreptitiously stretch.

 

_2\. The Baron Duroro of Wellesley_

 

Elizabeth and Mrs. Kirke had invented a slightly disrespectful game of ‘spot the most hideous dress’ which passed the time admirably. As they were near the back of the crowd, close to the door to the drawing room, they had nearly the entire court from which to choose. Their husbands pretended not to notice or take part in it, but when Elizabeth and Mrs. Kirke had just settled on a delightful concoction of pink and puce satin over a petticoat of blue lutestring trimmed with artificial flowers, Colonel Fitzwilliam nudged Elizabeth gently in the side.

“Three rows ahead to Mrs. Kirke’s left,” he muttered. All four of them turned to see a gown of unsurpassing hideousness. The dressmaker had not been able to decide what trimming to put on the gown and so had put on all of them. The poor young debutant underneath all the ermine, ribbons, netting, artificial flowers, gold lama, tassels, and pearls, seemed terrified to move. It was entirely possible she could not actually move at all.

Elizabeth whispered, much moved, “Oh darling! It’s _hideous_ , thank you.”

“One must do one’s poor best to satisfy one’s wife,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam.

“Amen to that,” said Colonel Kirke.

“--the Viscount Wellington of Talavera!” said the Lord Chamberlain.

Mrs. Kirke sighed. “Now I know why your sister-in-law told us not to drink anything this morning. Thank God for that, or this would be worse than the retreat from Burgos.”

 

_3\. The Viscount Wellington of Talavera_

 

Mrs. Kirke was by now so tired and so miserable, she could do little more than stand in place and wish for death. She had never been presented at court until that day, and had not been sufficiently prepared for it. Colonel Kirke was not much better; he had been injured in the leg during the Battle of Toulouse, and though he was still standing, he was pale with the effort of it. He had no energy to spare for conversation.

Their other neighbors were unknown to Elizabeth, and she did not wish to risk the censure of someone who might later be assigning the much scarcer assignments to high ranking officers. So she counted plumes until she bored of it, and then began plotting escape.  

“I could pretend to go into labor,” whispered Elizabeth, as the Prince Regent lugubriously continued to make the Viscount Wellington of Talavera the Earl of Wellington.

Her husband looked warningly at her.

“I could pretend to be with child; it would be very easy with this hoop.”

“ _Lizzy._ ”

She tried to pull at her gown to look as if she was with child, but had to admit, she couldn't fool even the notoriously shortsighted Lady Wellington. The march to Toulouse had been too grueling and though she had happily taken up her mother's fretful order to eat and put some flesh back on, the usual curve of her stomach remained precisely that: usual.

“Give me your bicorn,” she whispered.

“ _What_?”

“I can stuff it under my petticoat.” At his unamused look, she said, innocently, “It will still be of your getting.”

“But of a Bond Street haberdasher’s creation.” He could not resist the joke, “No, Lizzy, I shan't allow you to deliver an offspring that is literally queer as Dick’s hatband.”

They had an extremely difficult time not laughing as the Lord Chamberlain announced the Earl of Wellington, and, despite their pains, were still glared at by an admiral.

 

_4\. The Earl of Wellington_

 

“Perhaps I could faint?” Elizabeth ventured.

Colonel Fitzwilliam had only gotten annoyed with her a handful of times, in all the years they had been married, but this was fast shaping up to be as bad as the Insufficiently Fine Muslin Shirts incident. And yet, Elizabeth could not entirely help herself. She was miserable and wanted to provoke Colonel Fitzwilliam to being in the exact same state. She could tell she was well on her way by the set of his jaw and the clipped way in which he said, “For God’s sake.”

“I _could_ faint. I am not incapable of it. I am sure if I willed myself to do it, I could make myself unconscious.”

He tried not to respond.

“Really, I could. Some women in the first division faint only to be interesting. Fainting to get out of the most ludicrous trappings of the aristocracy seems quite noble.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam realized she would not stop talking until she had goaded him into a response and said out of the corner of his mouth, “You have never fainted in your life. It would be ridiculous to start now.”

“You don't find it more ridiculous I haven’t fainted yet? You don't find it embarrassing you have to stay silent when the port goes round and the men compare the times their wives have swooned upon them?”

“That is not what we discuss when the port goes around.”

“Out of sympathy to you, I am sure. They do not wish to bring up so enjoyable a subject of conversation when you can have no share of it.”

He glanced heavenward, as if to ask the Almighty why he had been plagued with such a spouse.

“So you see, I would really be doing you two good turns.”

“You are doing me none right now, Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”

“Yes, I am, I am distracting you.”

“That is not precisely a good turn--” but he cut himself off as the Admiral turned to glare at them suspiciously. Elizabeth offered him her sweetest, most innocent smile.

“--the Marquess of Wellington!”

The Kirkes groaned.

 

_5\. The Marquess of Wellington_

 

Elizabeth was beginning to have sympathy for the Jacobins. Was this _really_ the best way to organize society, she asked herself, as she balanced on one aching foot, and tried to quietly rotate the other, without hitting any of the hoops of her skirt. Was all this custom and ceremony worth it? Was it right to insist women spend so much of their pin money on gowns so ugly and so useless, instead of saving that money to buy bread for the poor, or improving books for deserving relations? Elizabeth was fast believing that her pin money would have been better spent on providing compulsory gin for infants than on a gown that did not let her lean on her husband’s arm.

Not that he was offering it to her any longer; he was just as exhausted and short-tempered as she was, and probably could not have supported her very much at all. The beat on the pommel of his sword was now quite rapid; Elizabeth recognized Mozart’s ‘Dies Irae.’

Even the admiral ahead of them was beginning to wilt.

“There is such a thing as being _too_ accomplished,” Elizabeth could not resist saying to her husband.

Colonel Fitzwilliam raised his eyebrows, but kept his attention fixed on a distant point ahead of them, where, presumably, the Prince Regent was performing whatever mysterious alchemy made a Marquess into a Duke. Elizabeth liked to imagine there was a great deal of complicated swordplay involved, but was sure it was mostly the passing of various symbolic items and waving one’s hands over things.

“Did Sir Arthur have to win quite so many battles?” she asked, trying to look pensive, if not prophetic. “To have such skill in battle surely smacks of hubris. Mars shall swoop down and punish us all.”

“He is punishing us all,” muttered Mrs. Kirke, who had overheard this.

“Mars can invent no punishment more suitable for a room full of soldiers than standing constantly at attention without being able to see or hear anything,” muttered Colonel Fitzwilliam, “except possibly major generals.”

“Major generals ought to be their own category of punishment,” said Elizabeth. “Like the circles of Dante’s hell.”

“Are Royal Drawing Rooms the very last circle then?” asked Colonel Fitzwilliam.

“We poor sinners are entrapped in the ice of court etiquette,” agreed Elizabeth, just as the Lord Chamberlain announced the Duke of Wellington.

The applause was raucous and sincere, though it was somewhat difficult to tell if everyone was genuinely delighted at the new-made Duke’s success, or at the end of the ceremony.  

 

_6\. The Duke of Wellington_

 

There were a number of benefits to being the daughter-in-law of an Earl, but the chief of it was the rapidity with which the carriage was brought around. It was on legs shaking with exhaustion that Elizabeth climbed into the carriage only to realize-- no! She could not sit in her hoops!

Elizabeth was ready to scream. Marjorie clambered into the coach and said, “Oh yes, I was forgetting you were unused to these. Hold onto the strap and sort of crouch, like this.” Elizbaeth attempted to imitate her, and ended up feeling rather ridiculous.

“Men have it far too easy,” said Elizabeth, when Colonel Fitzwilliam and Lord Stornoway flopped into their seats and spread their legs, looking deeply relieved.

“Easy?” asked Colonel Fitzwilliam, tipping his bicorn over his eyes. “Mens’ legs are uncovered. _You_ could shift your weight, my dear. I could not.”

“I think being able to sit in your court attire is easier," said Elizabeth, but then held her tongue as the Earl made his stiff way into the coach. He groaned as he sat down.

“Quite the ceremony, was it not, my lord?” asked Marjorie.

“Quite,” said his lordship. “I should be glad never to see its like again.”

Elizabeth was not sure when she had ever been so perfectly in accord with her father-in-law.


	2. In which Lady Catherine (habitually) horrifies Mr. Darcy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Hi, who asked what a Regency bathing machine was. (It's this: https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/tag/regency-bathing-machines/)
> 
> ETA: The amazingbadassindistress drew me a picture of Lady Catherine and her bathing machine!!! Take a look here: http://badassindistress.tumblr.com/post/156842982826/here-we-have-lady-catherine-the-bourgh-proudly

Elizabeth had embarked upon her usual solitary afternoon walk along the beach, when the rough peace was shattered by the noise of human voices raised in vexation and complaint. She was about to quicken her pace when she heard the sound of protesting horses, and then the creak and rattle of coach wheels upon the pebbled shore. This was too baffling to abandon; she turned and saw a truly bewildering contraption inching its way down the narrow incline from the lawns of Matlock house onto the beach. At first she thought it some sort of carriage, but it was not entirely the right shape, and there was a small army of servants surrounding it-- trying to coax the horses to the water, despite the horses' repeated objections that they did not want to go in the water; trying to get the coach wheels out from where they had sunk into the silt that made up the border between lawn and beach; and attending to whoever was shouting from inside the contraption.

She supposed the shouting person was Lady Catherine, for Lady Catherine seemed the likeliest person to venture down to the beach in so much state; and really, thought Elizabeth, no one else would attempt to add what appeared to be an enormous bonnet brim and a set of stairs to a shed on wheels.

Darcy and the Newfoundland dog that seemed to have adopted him were further down the beach; Elizabeth waved at them, and Darcy was beside her in an instant. He was startled into speaking first and asked, "What on earth is that?"

"I was hoping you could tell me," said Elizabeth. "It is your aunt's, after all."

"How can you tell?"

The noise of someone abusing a coachman drifted over to them, borne on the gentlest of sea breezes.

"Ah," said Darcy.

Elizabeth hid a smile and turned to greet the Newfoundland, who happily drooled all over her black muslin skirts. "Is it a carriage?" she asked. "It has windows, but the doors are on the ends instead of the sides."

Whatever it was, it rumbled down into the waves and then, following another torrent of commands from the inhabitants, stopped so that a deeply unhappy groom could splash into the waves and unharness the horses. The horses were very glad to be out of this cold wet thing that hid the ground from them, and whinnied in abject misery when they were harnessed to the end of the contraption now facing the beach, instead of being allowed to go back to their nice, dry stable. A maidservant, her skirts hiked up about her knees, appeared on the staircase now facing the sea, and with an expression akin to Bodecia facing the Roman forces, began wrestling down the cloth hood until it met the surface of the water.

"Oh," said Elizabeth, surprised, "it is a bathing machine."

"Lady Catherine is sea-bathing?" asked Darcy, in tones of muted horror.

Elizabeth snorted. "I never thought I should be grateful to her, after all her comments to me at dinner, but at least she has made us see her sea-bathe in only our mind's eye, not in actuality."


	3. In which there are examples of Elizabeth's epistolary style

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Elelith, who asked for Darcy's POV on the last scene in chapter 12.

Darcy was, for the first time in perhaps years, in a good mood. He almost did not recognize it when it came upon him. In drunker, more poetic moods, he had thought he had been living years without summer, and now, here was the advent of spring. For once, the insurmountable obstacles facing him had crumbled-- and, in a twist, he had Mrs. Fitzwilliam to _thank_ for it.

He could never help being astonished by her, not since she had cheerfully tramped three miles from Longbourn to Netherfield, in search of her sister. How had he not realized what a formidable woman she was, just by that? Every letter she had sent to his own sister after that seemed only to prove it:

' _Dear Georgiana, what a to do! I nearly blew up some powder wagons today--'_

_'Dearest G-- cannot write much, but you will be astonished (and hopefully gratified) to hear that Mrs. Kirke and I have just broke out of a French prison! Well, in all honesty, a port merchant's house taken over by the --th Dragoons and the --th legere, where Mrs. K and some other officers' wives and I were "being entertained" while our husbands were off where the French were _supposed_ to attack, instead of the "safe" village where we remained with the baggage--'_

_'Georgiana, my dear-- I have made the most daring escape yet-- from Rosings, in the middle of the yearly visit! But Napoleon is tired of Elba, so we needs must back to France--'_

and that last, most awful closing:

_'The regiment is to hold Hougoumont, the principal estate, I believe of the village of Waterloo. Richard is not sanguine. It alarms me more than I can presently write. He, who always underestimates danger, and even yesterday thought I was being too anxious over an injury he received in the arm...which, by the by, turned out to be as serious as I thought! It gave him a fever (though he was bled for it this morning and expects to shortly be better)._

_I have been many times anxious for his safety and my own, but for the first time, I am truly frightened._

_yr loving and nervous coz,  
E. B. F.'_

But that was now past, and Elizabeth was as light, bright and sparkling as Darcy had ever seen her. Even her gown, a spotted muslin that caught the light of the candles and the fire, seemed to wink at him, as if continually letting him into a joke. She had won her fiercest battle yet. It had been immensely gratifying to fight beside her. In a way, Darcy thought, watching her tease the Duke of Wellington, he, too had had his revenge against that which kept stealing the people he loved from him. And with this surgeon from the Coldstream Guards, he might triumph over infection forever. The thought dissolved what felt like long-held tensions; laughter rose in him like bubbles in a flute of champagne at Elizabeth's imitation of Mr. Elliot. He felt at ease, happy-- for once not longing for the impossible, for once content with what small portion of happiness life had measured out for him. Darcy thought to himself, 'this is enough.' Just to bask in triumph and firelight, watching Elizabeth let loose her wit. This would be enough.

Though Darcy knew and knew well the dangers of paying too much attention to Elizabeth, even in the strict confines of his own mind, he could not guard himself this evening. It was impossible not to enjoy her, to accept her open-handed invitation to share in her triumph. And Wellington was too old of a campaigner not to take advantage of an opponent when said opponent's guard was down.

When His Grace rose to leave, he avoided Darcy's eye to chuck Elizabeth under the chin and kiss her.

Darcy later thought that if all the typecases in a busy print shop had been knocked over, and one had plunged face-first into the resulting confusion of backwards letters and punctuation marks, devoid of sense or meaning, one might have an accurate representation of his own thoughts.

He could not believe it. He could not make sense of it. He scarcely heard Wellington's remarks, and only at Wellington's parting smirk, the raised eyebrow which always meant 'your move' when they were arguing over the after diner port, Darcy realized just what this was: provocation. Whatever form His Grace's fondness for his favorite, Mrs. Fitzwilliam, might take, it would not evolve further. Wellington was ceding the field. Darcy was horrified to have been so transparent, to have revealed so much of what he had so long kept hidden. His only consolation was that if Wellington noticed, Elizabeth, at least, had not. She was blushing and seemed inclined to hide behind her widow's veil, a more telling action than she even knew. Darcy clutched the mantel. One does not get over so strong an affection, he thought, bitterly, almost dazedly. One perhaps ought not.

As Mary Crawford did what she did best (namely, "be extremely inappropriate") Darcy was conscious not only of the desire to inflict harm on Britain's savior and modern Europe's most effective soldier, but one more painful thought: that this was not enough and even the bloody Duke of Wellington knew it.


	4. Nevertheless She Persisted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In 1813, Elizabeth is captured by the French. This does not end well for the French. (Tw: mentions of violence, mentions of sexual violence.)

Following their defeat at (perhaps ironically), the city of Vitoria, the French had abandoned their artillery, their baggage, and a number of “King” Joseph Bonaparte’s personal belongings. What had been an act of desperation had turned out to be an unexpectedly brilliant defensive maneuver; the British soldiers had been distracted by the leavings of a monarch and the French had a chance to run for San Sebestiàn and Pamplona. From those two cities, it was an easy march into the Pyrenees and then to France.  After vehemently making his displeasure known (the infantry were now known as “the scum of the earth” and the cavalry as “a disgrace to the name of soldier”), General Sir Arthur Wellesley set his troops to capture those two cities, and harry the French fleeing towards them.

Colonels Kirke and Fitzwilliam had been tasked with tracking down two escaped regiments from the French rear guard, who had been caught by the Coldstream Guard and forced to run west, away from the bulk of the French forces. Wellington did not have much hope of catching a regiment of dragoons and a regiment of foot with two regiments of infantry and a detached company of cavalry, but this assignment was implicitly understood to be more about soothing the nerves of the Spanish, than capturing the French. The news of French dragoons and foot soldiers roaming free was understandably alarming to the already anxious populace; seeing British redcoats marching about made everyone, from the most ill-equipped Spanish guerilla, to the highest member of the local aristocracy, feel much better.

It was beginning to near sunset and the men were weary of marching, even along the populated roads the Colonels had chosen, in the interests of making themselves visible to as many Spanish citizens as possible. Elizabeth was herself drooping in the saddle.

“I never thought _we_ should be on parade duty like this,” Elizabeth said to Mrs. Kirke.

“Funny old world, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Kirke, with a yawn. “Lord, what I’d give to see some action now.”

“Would you? I do not think we would have a great deal of success against dragoons and light infantry, even if we outnumber them.”

“It depends on where we run into ‘em, Mrs. Fitz. If we were able to surprise them, I daresay it’d be an easy enough battle— ooh, there’s one of the cavalrymen galloping back. Think he’s found something?”

He had— though, to Mrs. Kirke’s disappointment, he had not found any French soldiers, but a billet for the evening. He had ridden up a hilly vineyard, in the hopes of getting a better view of the area from the top of the hill and, to his delight, found a great house set back behind some pretty woods, and a village a little ways beyond that. The house— based on the state of the overgrown vineyard, woods, and kitchen gardens— had been abandoned some years ago. The one servant who still lived in the place reported that his master, a well-to-do port merchant had fled home for Britain in ‘09, and would be very glad for his house to be of use to the British Army.  

Everyone was pleased with this discovery; and the decision to rest there for the evening was unanimous. Great iron cauldrons of tea were immediately set to brewing in the kitchen for the men, and more civilized silver pots with real China leaves in the parlor, for the officers.

Elizabeth and Mrs. Kirke were watching over the latter when a delegation from the town arrived, comprised of the most important inhabitants: a small band of guerillas, the alcalde (a Spanish position that combined ‘magistrate’ with ’mayor’), the alcalde’s wife, and the village priest. They were followed by a smaller group of curious tradesmen, and their wives and daughters, who, after peering curiously at the officers, and giggling at Colonel Fitzwilliam’s very British-accented Spanish, retreated to the kitchen to look and giggle at the enlisted men instead.

“Will you not sit down?” Elizabeth asked, in her very careful (and equally British-accented) Spanish. “I regret... blast.” She switched to English and asked Captain Kearney, who was interested in languages and served as the regiment’s unofficial translator, “How do I say I regret we have only tea and hardtack to offer them?”

Captain Kearney translated, and the alcalde indicated (also through Captain Kearney), that he was delighted to dine in the British fashion.

Elizabeth was much amused to think tea and hardtack was emblematic of British cuisine, but did the honors of the tea table with as much pomp as she used in Matlock House during the London season. Colonel Fitzwilliam was very amused by this; he kept looking away from the alcalde, who was delivering a long and rambling speech of welcome, to send laughing glances in Elizabeth’s direction. She tried to look prim, but gave up the effort when he bowed elaborately in thanks when she handed him a cup of tea.

The alcalde unfortunately did not pick up on the fact that this was a joke, and bowed just as elaborately in thanks for his own cup. Elizabeth pressed her lips together and asked, unsteadily, if they had been much troubled by the escaping French.

They had not seen them yet, the alcalde admitted, through Captain Kearney. But their little town overlooked one of many roads that ended at Pamplona. A guerilla who had, for some unfathomable reason, perused all possible Spanish fauna and chosen to nickname himself ‘El Pipistrello’ after a type of native bat, added that the French rear guard had been spotted fairly recently, trying to march towards Pamplona.

Colonel Kirke was rather surprised by this— he really hadn’t thought they would come across the French at all— though Colonel Fitzwilliam was more surprised that they’d managed to outstrip the French.

“We left Vitoria long after they did,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, puzzled. “They ought to be nearer Pamplona.”

El Pipistrello said, with pride, that he and some other local guerillas had managed to keep the French from greatly advancing. The guerillas had not sufficient numbers to attack outright, but they had enough— if they attacked in the dark— to significantly impair and annoy the two regiments. They kept the soldiers awake, or stole horses, so that the troops were too exhausted to march very far during the day.

“So,” said Colonel Kirke, thoughtfully dunking his hardtack into his tea, “we were right to come this way, eh?”

El Pipistrello nodded and assured them that the French regiments must pass through this part of the country if they hoped to rejoin the rest of the French army. This part of the country was very hilly; the main road, as the British themselves had experienced, were scarcely wide enough for a single carriage, let alone a whole regiment of cavalry.

The village priest, who had been valiantly (but unsuccessfully) gnawing on his hardtack happily put this aside to sketch out a map of the area to support this. El Pipistrello made a careful mark where his men had last seen the advance guard of French dragoons.

Colonel Kirke pointed his hardtack at the map. “Hold a moment, Mister Bat. The roads branch off. There’s a second road that looks to curve round this hill and into the village before going onto Pamplona.”

“So there are two roads the French could feasibly take,” said the captain of detached cavalry, rather pointedly.

The worthies of the little town agreed to this. The French could march through the town or through the vineyard, but, given the surrounding terrain, and where they had last been spotted, they must march on one or the other to get to Pamplona.

The alcalde expressed his belief that the French, who had abandoned all their supply, would most likely take the road into town and rob it. The Spanish guerillas disagreed with this. They were certain that the French would travel on the main road at the bottom of the vineyard, in order to reach the Pyrenees more speedily. The same problem of supply (of boots and horses, mostly) would keep the French away from roads difficult to walk on, like the one that lead up to town.  

Colonel Fitzwilliam asked, “Have the French ever passed this way before?”

“Si,” the alcalde said, reluctantly.

And had the French stopped in the town?

The alcalde had to admit they had not.

The alcalde’s wife, looking extremely pleased with herself, launched into a torrent of what appeared to be self-congratulation in a dialect no one but the alcalde spoke. He (and then Captain Kearney) translated that they had given out that the whole village was suffering from smallpox. A fair number of the villagers were badly scarred from an actual outbreak some ten years prior, and manned all the shops; the villagers in good health had fled into the hills until they had seen the French hastily galloping away.

This stratagem delighted Elizabeth. She smiled her approval at the alcalde’s wife.

Colonel Fitzwilliam looked to Colonel Kirke. “I take the alcalde’s fears quite seriously, but I think that our bat-loving friend there has a better, and more intimate knowledge of this country and the French troop movements than anyone else in the room. I am inclined to think he is right, and that the French will pass by on the main road.”

Colonel Kirke went to the window and, drawing back the curtain, studied the view of the little town. “I think the question is this: are the French more desperate for supply or for home?”

The captain of cavalry opined, “ _I_ think—given what they know of the town— even if they are very desperate for food, they would not risk the chance of plague-ridden supply. They certainly would not risk their chance of going home over it.”

“I think you've the right of it.” Colonel Kirke turned to Captain Kearney. “Pray tell the alcalde that we will leave a company of men to watch the town. As a good faith gesture we will leave the ladies and the supply wagons too—that shows we are quite serious about the defense of this...” Colonel Kirke glanced out the window again. The principal buildings appeared to be a church, a tavern, and the house of the alcalde himself. They all looked careworn and slightly shabby in the light of the setting sun. “This... lovely village?”

Captain Kearney translated this with more imagination than accuracy.

The alcalde swelled with pride. His town _was_ quite lovely; he was glad the British saw that. Furthermore, all shops were open to them, and he hoped that, if the officers were agreeable, he and his wife could offer them a good dinner.

“Tonight I am afraid we must lay in wait for the French,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, after conferring with El Pipistrello, “but tomorrow we should be glad of it.”

The alcalde, his wife, and the village priest looked so disappointed Mrs. Kirke clucked her tongue and said, “Well, we will be here! We can do something for them, surely.”

“A capitol idea, my dear,” said Colonel Kirke, approvingly. “Invite them here to dine with the ladies. I think the alcalde will be very flattered to carve for you."

Colonel Fitzwilliam added his approbation to this scheme.

Elizabeth translated, clumsily, “You dine with us this evening? We ladies rest in this house. We are happy to give you dinner.”

This restored everyone to smiles, and Elizabeth excused herself to try and arrange this.

 

***

 

The tradesmen in the kitchen had rather anticipated her request, and had brought with them large baskets of foodstuffs; Elizabeth turned over all questions of payment and selection to the quartermasters’ wife, who generally cooked for the officers’ mess, and went to check on the rest of the women of the regiment.

Elizabeth always felt a little awkward doing this, for she could only do it while maintaining the fiction that the women to whom she spoke were the wives of enlisted men, washerwomen, or seamstresses and absolutely nothing else. But it was always quite, quite obvious who practiced a different (in fact the oldest) profession, and Elizabeth was always relieved when she could go visit the washerwomen, whose work could not possibly be called into question. These women were already in the wash house, setting water to boil; after being hailed with the cheerful news that everyone would have clean shirts and shifts that time tomorrow, and replying, in turn, with news of the battle plans for that evening, Elizabeth left them to their tubs. She sent her maid down with the items that most badly needed washing but, in removing the dusty riding habit she'd worn since leaving Vitoria, she was forced admit the thing that most needed a thorough wash was herself.

Elizabeth was not surprised to discover her maid had already arranged for this, and had returned from the washhouse with several of the burliest washer women and buckets of hot water. It was odd, Elizabeth reflected, squeezing herself into the hip bath Mrs. Pattinson had dug up from somewhere. She was the daughter-in-law of an Earl; she regularly dined with a man who would be a Duke if he ever went home to claim his titles; and even before marrying above her station, she had been the daughter of a gentleman and never known want— and had, in fact, frequently known luxury beyond the touch of the rest of her neighbors. And yet, every time she managed to sink into a bath during a campaign, she could have sworn there was no greater luxury in the world.

It was a particular delight to wash her hair, which had managed to become both dusty and greasy from the long daily rides; and she was cozily, if frumpily wrapped up in an old dressing gown of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s, brushing her hair out by the fire when Colonel Fitzwilliam came in.

“Lizzy, oh Lizzy, do let down your hair,” said he, collapsing into the chair beside hers. “Had a bath, have you?”

“No, fell into the well,” said Elizabeth, impishly.

“Hopefully after they drew water for tea.”

She smiled. “There’s still plenty of hot water in the wash house, if you want a bath.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed. “That a hint, Lizzy?” She protested this; he reached over and tugged on a curl. “Peace, my dear. I am sure I shall fantasize about a hot bath when when I am sitting in a cold and dirty vineyard this evening, waiting for the French.”

“You haven’t the time now? I could attend you myself.”

He twined the curl he had captured around his fingers. “Then I would be here for hours, when I have really only the five minutes to take my leave of you.”

“You have so little time?”

“Kirke and I must settle between us where to position the men before it gets too much darker. I am afraid I rather wasted time in the kitchen. I do not understand what magic the quartermaster’s wife has at her command. She seemed to me to be horribly busy making pease soup and a roast with Yorkshire pudding, to please our Spanish guests' taste for English cooking, but still managed to get me a hot meal in a trice.” He released her hair with a sigh, and stood. “Believe me, my dear, I will bitterly reproach myself for most of the evening, for not thinking to join you in your bath instead.”

“I could offer you some consolation.” She ended this with rather a flirtatious look.

“Don’t keep looking at me like that, my dear; if you do, the French will be upon us before I have the will to leave the room.”

“You are not giving me any reason to stop,” said Elizabeth, twisting around so she could put her arms around his waist. “In fact, I think that's a significant inducement to keep doing _exactly_ what I am doing—”

Colonel Fitzwilliam gave into her, as he usually did, and bent to kiss her lightly, almost teasingly.

“Call that a kiss, colonel?” Elizabeth asked, in mock offense.

Colonel Fitzwilliam smiled at her. “ _I_ do. What do you call it, Mrs. Fitzwilliam?”

“A tease.”

“Alas, Mrs. Fitzwilliam,” replied he, with mock seriousness, “I seem to have forgot what a kiss _is_ then. Is it this?” He cupped her cheek and kissed her lingeringly.

“Getting closer, my dear sir.”

“How about this then?” he asked, kissing her more thoroughly.

“Very nearly there,” she murmured against his lips.

“I begin to suspect, my dear,” said he, placing his hands on either side of her, on the arms of her chair, “that you do not want a kiss at all.”

Elizabeth smiled up at him as winsomely as she could, while being fully aware of just how wet her hair was and how really ugly her old dressing gown was; he laughed and kissed her on the nose. “When I return, Lizzy, I promise.”

“I shall hold you to it. I do recall blushing to hear you vow, ‘With my body, I thee worship.’”

“I am afraid I promised my sword arm to King George before I promised the rest of me to worshiping you.” Still, he could not resist kissing her again.

She deepened the kiss, and rather felt she would have gotten her way if Colonel Kirke hadn't knocked on the door, saying, “Ready Fitzwilliam?”

Colonel Fitzwilliam regretfully disentangled himself from Elizabeth’s embrace and called, “Yes, yes, just a moment.”

“Stop flirting with your wife,” said Colonel Kirke, cracking open the door and sticking his head in. “We've dragoons to slay.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam put a hand to his heart in mock offense. “The day I stop flirting with Mrs. Fitzwilliam is the day I die, sir!” Then, with a parting wink at Elizabeth: “It's too much a habit now to be stopped any other way.”

Colonel Kirke clapped Colonel Fitzwilliam on the epauletted shoulder, as they disappeared into the hall and down the stairs. “Just wait until you're ten years married and your idea of a good evening becomes sitting on opposite ends of the couch, reading different books.”

Elizabeth did not hear Colonel Fitzwilliam’s response, but smiled at the familiar tone of voice in which he said it— dry and light; he always had an air of tossing away his best lines, when he was being purposefully clever— and went back to drying her hair. The impulse to just doze before the fire was very strong, but the wife of a colonel had her duties too; Mrs. Pattinson soon located Elizabeth's trunk from the baggage wagons and began shaking out various bits of evening wear. Elizabeth put on a Turkey red gown, and the least favorite of her jewels (a rather gaudy pearl and ruby set that generations of Fitzwilliam women, since the time of Queen Elizabeth, had forced on their least favorite relations), tucked her still damp hair under a lace cap, and went down to dinner.

The ladies of the regiment were all at the stage of exhaustion that was sometimes impossible to distinguish from drunkenness. Mrs. MacDonald’s report that a friend of hers in the 14th Hussars had “liberated” King Joseph Bonaparte’s silver chamberpot from the abandoned baggage train had them all in whoops of inelegant laughter, even the aristocratic, English-born ladies who generally made a point to look unamused whenever Elizabeth found something funny. (There were fewer of these ladies now than there had been when Elizabeth first married into the regiment; some had elected to stay behind in England, after realizing how much they disliked the tone Elizabeth set for the officers’ wives, and others had followed the lead of the more snobbish officers of Captain Kirke’s regiments, and gone into more fashionable brigades.)

The village priest was inclined to be censorious, but the alcalde’s wife found this story so amusing the alcalde himself joined in the general merriment. Indeed, they were so merry, they almost did not hear the sound of shouting from the pickets (small groups of soldiers on watch) patrolling the grounds of the house. Then gunshots rang out.

Mrs. Kirke looked reluctantly at the fresh bread and half-eaten bowls of pease soup still before them all and sighed. “Not even through the soup course— well, ladies, up we get.”

“Are we being attacked by the French?” asked one of Mrs. Kirke’s nieces, looking very startled.

“I don’t know what else it could be,” said Mrs. Kirke. “There isn’t anything to poach. The country’s been picked over too much for that.”

One of the ladies of Mrs. Kirke’s regiment was translating for their Spanish guests. The alcalde quite leapt from his seat, exclaiming that he had been right; the French had attacked his town.

Elizabeth opened the door of the dining room to see a panting young ensign trembling on the threshold. “Mr...?”

“Leigh, madam,” said he, quite out of his wits with terror. “Beg pardon, ma’am. It was me and Ensign Craddock and Lieutenant Woolf in charge of the pickets in the road before the town, and we were surprised by the French ma’am. Even now they are behind me; they quite overwhelmed us. Lieutenant Woolf says he will do what he can to hold them, but you must leave— though I do not know where you ought to flee madame; they have —”

The alcalde’s wife interrupted, and the alcalde gave them to understand that they all must flee immediately to the hills. Everyone ought to follow her, she knew of a secret route through the woods that the French could not find or follow.

“Thank you. Madame, we will follow,” said Mrs. Kirke, nodding. “Right then ladies, off we get— Ensign Leigh, there are some men in the stables.”

Ensign Leigh looked unsure of what to do with this information.

“Would you be so good as to alert them as well?” suggested Elizabeth. “And there are women in the kitchen, and in the wash house; tell them to leave their work and follow us at once. Oh, and so let the soldiers know I would be very grateful if they could lend us their escort— da—blast! Beatrice, my husband left nearly all his papers and orders here. Did yours?”

Mrs. Kirke muttered a curse and took the stairs two at a time.

Ensign Leigh looked stricken. “Mrs. Fitzwilliam, I, er— I do not—”

“It’s quite alright,” said Elizabeth, as the ladies behind her put on cloaks and bonnets with varying degrees of nonchalance. “Ensign Leigh, did you send anyone to alert Colonel Fitzwilliam yet?”

“Yes, ma’am, Ensign Craddock was sent as soon as Lieutenant Woolf heard the regiments marching down the road— there wasn’t even a drummer, madame, there was just footsteps in the dark and we didn’t know what it was until their advance guard began to fire—”

“It’s quite alright. Mrs. Kearney, Mrs. MacDougal—” these being the ladies with whom she had the strongest friendship, and who were the calmest in a crisis “—will you be so good as to assist Mrs. Kirke and myself, in gathering up the regimental papers? Miss Robinson— if you will lead the ladies to the stables with Mr. Leigh? Out the back, I think.”

“But, ma’am,” protested Ensign Leigh, terrified, “what should I tell Colonel Fitzwilliam, when he asks why you were left behind?”

“That I insisted on having my own way. He cannot fault you for that. Now go on, before Lieutenant Woolf is overrun! He and his men can make sure we four reach the hills safely.” Elizabeth gently pushed him towards the door and raced up the stairs, Mrs. MacDougal and Mrs. Kearney close behind. It was the work of five minutes to locate what papers could be disastrous in the hands of the French; Mrs. Kearney came running from the Kirke’s room to say, “Mrs. Kirke begs you will stuff as much as you can into your stays. The rest you must burn.”

Mrs. MacDougal, stirring up the fire, said, implacably, “Tell her to save her breath to cool her porridge; we are all set here.”

Elizabeth felt that she had been very quick about her work, but even that was not quick enough. The gunshots sounded alarmingly close, very nearly under the windows facing the lawn before the house. Mrs. MacDougal dropped the poker in alarm and went to the window.

“Well?” asked Elizabeth.

Mrs. MacDougal cursed.

Elizabeth flung on her cloak and consigned all the papers she had not sorted to the flames. “We’d best leave.”

Mrs. Kirke and Mrs. Kearney were already running down the staircase. There was no sign of any redcoat; and though they could hear shouting in the back, the noise of the guns was now too loud for them to discern any of the words. The front door flew open when they had nearly reached it; Mrs. Kirke shouted, “The side door!”, grabbed Mrs. Kearney, who was closest, and nearly flung her down the servants’ staircase, towards the kitchen. Elizabeth and Mrs. MacDougal nearly collided into one another as they changed their course.

They raced through the kitchen. The abandoned work of dinner passed before Elizabeth’s startled gaze— the roast and Yorkshire puddings were still in the oven; the cheese platter and salad was but half-assembled; the asparagus was scattered over a table, with its sauce congealing in a pan; a milk pudding had been overturned onto the floor— then they heard the sound of musket fire outside the kitchen, through the open scullery door.

Mrs. MacDougal reached for a kitchen knife as they raced out through the scullery, but was startled by the noise; her fingers closed on empty air. Mrs. Kirke swept out an arm and pinioned all three other ladies behind her, into the corner of the kitchen nearest the scullery. Mrs. Kearney tried to make herself small in the corner, to give the others more room; Elizabeth pressed herself against the whitewashed wall, one hand grasping Mrs. Kearney’s, the other pulling shut her unbuttoned traveling coat, over the maps and orders that seemed to burn through the bodice of her evening gown.

Into the kitchen strode a rather bedraggled officer, followed by a limping sergeant and a platoon of dirty and desperate soldiers. They did not notice the ladies at first; their attention was all on the food. They fell on it as Elizabeth imagined locusts had on the wheat fields of the ancient Egyptians. She was at first too terrified to parse what they were saying; their French was rapid, and full of soldierly slang. Elizabeth had just understood the troops were celebrating their good fortune when a man with sergeant’s stripes turned and saw the ladies in the corner.

He grinned at them, and strode over to his commanding officer, a very young man of perhaps eighteen. “Sir, we have disturbed some ladies at their dinner.”

“Oh!” said the officer, confusedly. He had marched to the door to the kitchen, no doubt intending to seize the rest of the house, and had not noticed none of his men had followed; and in fact, some were now using their bayonets to toast cheese over the fire. He was as embarrassed by this as he was by the presence of four ladies in evening gowns and jewels. “Do you ladies speak French?”

“I speak a little,” said Elizabeth, cautiously. Mrs. Kearney nodded, though she was not inclined to talk, and Mrs. Kirke said she also spoke French.

The lieutenant looked relieved. “I— er... ladies, we hope we have not frightened you.”

“A little late for that, lieutenant,” chortled the sergeant. “They’re the color of the wall. Except the one in front.”

Mrs. Kirke scowled at that.

“We mean you no harm,” said the lieutenant, doffing his hat. “Truly, we do not.”

“We only wish to have some of your dinner,” said the sergeant.

“It is yours,” said Elizabeth, after looking to Mrs. Kirke for advice.

“Will you kindly give us leave to depart, sirs?” asked Mrs. Kirke, in a tone of surprising calm.

The lieutenant looked uncertain, and said, “Well, I— I do not think I ought. There are two regiments outside and I know that some of the officers are not very kind to the ladies they come across. You would not... that is, I do not think some of them would behave respectfully to you, or treat you with honor.”

This was a threat Elizabeth had always been dimly aware of, though she had never had to face it herself. Colonel Fitzwilliam’s regiment had always been too far back behind the lines for her to be in any real danger of this kind of violence, and what little exposure she had to the victims of soldierly interest had both frightened her of the possibility, and reassured her that the possibility of it happening to herself was slim. Her rank was so high, her husband’s command so well-respected and safe, and her company so shored up with officers determined to defend her that she doubted she herself would ever be personally injured by the French, in any fashion except the metaphorical.

“What did he say?” asked Mrs. MacDougal, who had no French.

Mrs. Kearney said, scowling, “If we leave we might be dishonored.”

“I offer you my word as an officer,” said the lieutenant, with painful earnestness, “for I see you are all ladies— you will be respected by me and my men.”

Mrs. Kirke was not happy about this; she left it to Elizabeth to thank the young lieutenant.

The lieutenant nodded and glanced around the kitchen, eyeing the oven hopefully. Before he could investigate this himself, there were shouts from the hallway. He strode to the door and shouted back something Elizabeth did not immediately understand, though she caught the word ‘colonel.’

Into the room strode a fair-haired man of about forty, in the green coat of the dragoons and gold braid of a colonel. He had his brass, neo-Grecian helmet, with its band of leopard-skin, tucked under his right arm; the other was bound up in a sling made from a black military stock. The colonel took in the disorder amongst his men without much interest, but, seeing Elizabeth and her party crammed into the corner, looked a second time and became rather annoyed.

“Colonel!” the lieutenant said, snapping to attention. He turned quickly to his men and hissed, “At attention, you louts!”

The men hastily put down their food to salute.

The colonel dismissed this with a wave of the gloved hand hanging out of the sling. He was handsome, in a severe sort of way; his resting expression seemed one of disdain. “Lieutenant de Lacey, what is this?”

The lieutenant was petrified to be before so august a person as a colonel. “A kitchen, sir?”

The colonel directed to him a look of withering scorn. “No, I would never have guessed. Ninon!”

In strode a surprisingly pretty youth in a hussar’s tight-fitted sky-blue trousers, uniform coat, and the secondary coat that, for reasons that had always escaped Elizabeth, hussars wore as a sort of half-cloak over one shoulder. This was evidently Ninon, for the colonel commanded, “Look in the corner there.”

Ninon approached and Elizabeth was quite shocked to realize Ninon was, in fact, a woman of about thirty. “Name of God,” said Ninon, in an unmistakable soprano, “where did you dig up four ladies, de Lacey?”

“I have given these ladies my word they will not be harmed,” said the lieutenant, anxiously. “And they speak French, Madame Ninon— they will understand you well enough.”

“Is this your house, dear madames?” asked Ninon, kindly. “I am sorry to put you out, but we have need of it. May we also share in your dinner?”

Several other officers, drawn by the smell of cooking meat, or realizing that their colonel was there, now arrived in the kitchen. One brought in terrified, sixteen-year-old Ensign Craddock— who had a black eye and a torn coat— as a prisoner. He staggered in unsteadily and, seeing Elizabeth, fell before her and blurted out, “I am so sorry Mrs. Fitzwilliam, I did try to go to the colonel, you must tell him so. I did try my best.”

“Stupid,” muttered Mrs. Kirke.

“I’m sure you did,” said Elizabeth, “but be quiet now.”

“What did he say?” asked the colonel, impatiently.

Lieutenant de Lacey, eyes wide, translated as bid; the other officer forced Ensign Craddock back on his feet.

“Hm,” said the colonel. “Put this one with the other prisoners, in the wine cellar.”

“Ah,” said Ninon, raising her golden eyebrows, as Ensign Craddock was marched away. “English ladies. I suppose you, madame—” pointing with her chin at Elizabeth “—are Mrs. Fitzwilliam.” ‘Fitzwilliam’ was a difficult name to say in French; she managed a sort of approximation that sounded like ‘fêtes-ville-elm.’

“I am,” Elizabeth agreed.

“I would venture a guess,” said the colonel, “that your husband, this man’s colonel, is therefore a Colonel Fitzwilliam?”

Elizabeth looked quickly to Mrs. Kirke for advice; she looked pained, but nodded slightly. Elizabeth agreed to this as well.

“I don’t recognize the name,” said the colonel, irritably. He turned to one of the officers. “Where is Colonel de Valmont? Fetch him here.” He turned to another. “Riflemen are in green coats; their hussars are in blue; are only infantry in red?”

“Their dragoons are in red, sir, but mostly it is the infantry.”

The colonel grunted and said, “So. A regiment of infantry was here.”

Elizabeth did not bother to respond to this.

A colonel of infantry sauntered into the kitchen and gave a low, appreciative whistle. “How is it you are always finding these beauties, Michel, when you haven’t the ability to properly appreciate them?”

The colonel of dragoons resented this informality and said, in a tight, clipped tone, “Colonel de Valmont, I must inform you that we have, in fact, just defeated the rear guard of a regiment of British infantry.”

“Good for us,” said Colonel de Valmont. “I think we ought to celebrate that with the dinner the rear guard seems to have been expecting.”

“We ought,” said the other colonel, in the same clipped tone, “to pursue the enemy while surprise is still on our side.”

“And push our own men to fight when they have been on starvation rations for three days?” asked Colonel de Valmont, with an edge of annoyance to his tone.

Ninon went over to the colonel of dragoons and said, soothingly, “He is right, my dear one; the men have barely had a full night’s sleep, with all the guerillas about; let them eat something. It will delay you only an hour or two at most.”

The colonel of dragoons turned to Elizabeth and asked, “Why are you here, and why isn't your husband, madame?”

Mrs. Kirke slightly shook her head.

Elizabeth said, “I do not know, sir.”

One of the French officers bent to whisper something in Colonel de Valmont’s ear. He smiled and said, “I think you do, madame. You were left here with the baggage so the regiment could march more quickly, were you not?”

This wasn’t the case, but Elizabeth thought it seemed plausible. She kept silent.

“Where are they marching?” When Elizabeth did not immediately respond, he said, “I hope you will not lie to us, madame; it is beneath your dignity, and I am afraid I would have to punish you. I would not like to do that.” He took a step closer; Mrs. Kirke’s arm pressed more tightly before Elizabeth’s torso. “Your ensign was headed to the main road. Why? To find the rest of his regiment? Where are they?”

Ninon said, gently, “Monsieur de Valmont, you are frightening them.”

“I should hope so,” said he, smiling unpleasantly at all of the ladies. “It will keep them honest. If Madame the colonel’s wife makes me ask again where the regiment has gone, she will not enjoy the consequences— and neither will her friends.”

“Pamplona,” said Elizabeth, hoping Ensign Craddock had some wits about him. “They were marching through the night— to reach you before you reached Pamplona.”

The colonel of dragoons grunted; this satisfied him. “Fine. We will dine.”

“And what of these ladies?” asked Lieutenant de Lacey, very anxiously. “I promised them my protection.”

Colonel de Valmont raised an eyebrow. “And they say chivalry is dead!”

Ninon said, “Come now, de Valmont; they are owed such treatment. These are respectable ladies.”

Colonel de Valmont laughed. “Like you would know, Ninon!” The English ladies could not hide their confusion, and Ninon looked a little put out. Colonel de Valmont laughed even harder. “And here you thought your reputation always preceded you! My dear English ladies, I have the very great honor of introducing you to one of the most talented operatic sopranos in all France— perhaps in all Europe! Madame Annette Enjolras— more commonly known as the incomparable Ninon!”

Ninon gave an elegant curtsey. It looked very odd in her trousers and high leather riding boots. The colonel of dragoons had been striding about the kitchen, giving orders to various subalterns; he turned at this and said, sharply, “Colonel de Valmont, we have business to attend to. Finish up with these prisoners.”

“Did he say prisoners?” asked Mrs. MacDougal, to Elizabeth.

“Are we prisoners?” asked Elizabeth, in French.

“You are not prisoners,” said Colonel de Valmont smoothly, smilingly. “You are our honored guests. Allow us to entertain you in the absence of your husbands.”

Elizabeth greatly mistrusted this.

 

***

 

The men soon left the kitchen; Ninon lingered behind, keeping a wary eye on Colonel de Valmont. He did not seem inclined to leave, so Ninon said, “Well, we ought to entertain these ladies— did you see a pianoforte about the place?” She looked to the women, to include them in this question.

“There is one in one of the sitting rooms,” said Colonel de Valmont, eating a handful of almonds that had once been intended for a tart. “We shall go tune it.”

Ninon went to the door and called for Lieutenant de Lacey.

“What,” said Colonel de Valmont, looking sorrowful, “you do not trust me alone with the ladies?”

“No,” said Ninon. “And, anyhow, if you want revenge, there are better ways than your unimaginative brutality.”

“I am hurt, Ninon, very hurt! But at the same time... most intrigued. A friend of my late uncle’s once told me that only a woman knows how to be truly revenged upon another woman.”

“Your friend was right.” Ninon shot a look at the English ladies, still crammed into their corner, that begged them to play along, but she soon rearranged her pretty features into a look of mild boredom. “Look at Madame Fitzwilliam there— or rather, look at her rubies. I doubt she has ever been in a kitchen, except to give orders to the cook. I daresay this might even be her first time in a kitchen. I think she ought to acquaint herself with its workings more intimately.”

Colonel de Valmont looked highly amused. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, it will take some time to tune the pianoforte, and for orders to be conveyed— I suggest that Madame Fitzwilliam and her friends there finish cooking the dinner they had begun, so that we may eat it.”

Colonel de Valmont chuckled. “So you propose to make this lady your personal chef?”

Ninon lifted her chin. “Yes. though I daresay she will have to be demoted to a scullery maid quickly enough. I highly doubt she has the skill to be a cook.”

Colonel de Valmont laughed. “Ah! Michel does not deserve you, my dear. Fine, we shall go with your revenge— there is a saying about it being a dish best served cold, but I daresay it shall not harm us to have it piping hot, this once.”

In a move that was at once both kind and aggravating, Ninon took the housekeeper’s keys from the private who had found them, and decided to lock the door out of the scullery, and the door from the kitchen to the rest of the house. Lieutenant de Lacey and his men, after liberating a last few loaves of bread, were to guard them. Half the men guarded the door into the kitchen from the house and the other half the door into the house via the scullery. The four English ladies were left in sole possession of the kitchen.

Elizabeth’s trembling knees began to give out; she sank onto the floor, burying her flushed face in her skirt. “Oh God.”

“ _Thank_ God,” said Mrs. Kirke, “for Ninon the opera singer. We would be in a fine mess without her.”

“What all was she saying just now?” asked Mrs. MacDougal.

Mrs. Kirke explained, as Elizabeth took several steadying breaths. This, she thought, was not _worse_ than the time she had been trapped on a powder wagon during a firefight. Merely more extended of a trial.

“—so we are even relatively safe, for now, in the kitchen,” concluded Mrs. Kirke.

“Yes, yes,” said Mrs. Kearney, not particularly grateful. “But we are still prisoners, and neither regiment knows we are prisoner, or even that the French have taken the town! The village is too high up in the hills, too far behind the woods, to be seen from the main road.”

“So we are responsible for our own escape,” said Mrs. Kirke, a little impatiently. “And so? That is not beyond us.”

Elizabeth was incredulous at this. “I think you have vastly overestimated our capabilities, Beatrice. We are four women, surrounded by a regiment of light infantry and a regiment of dragoons.”

“Two exhausted regiments,” corrected Mrs. Kirke. “And not surrounded. I’m sure they will divide up as we have— officers here, men to the village.”

Mrs. MacDougal had gone into the scullery to retrieve some aprons, and now tossed them at the other ladies. “Oh aye, and all of them to feed! Am I the only one amongst you who’s ever cooked?”

The other three looked at each other.

“My mother positively forbade me from going into the kitchen,” said Elizabeth. “She was very proud we had servants to cook for us.”

“I can muddle along over a campfire,” said Mrs. Kirke.

“It cannot be very different from mixing poultices and such,” said Mrs. Kearney.

Mrs. MacDougal sighed noisily. “Perfect. Let me check on the roast and the puddings before I sink into despair like Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”

Elizabeth, stung, struggled upright. “We’ve only the officers to feed, if I understood them all correctly.”

“To feed and defeat,” corrected Mrs. Kirke, pinning on her apron. Mrs. Kearney began opening and closing cabinets, in search of anything useful.

“We ought to do this the Highland way,” groused Mrs. MacDougal.

“Which is... what exactly?” Elizabeth asked, still rather annoyed. “Rushing suicidally against a much greater force?”

Mrs. MacDougal opened her mouth and closed it again, looking rather sour. “And what is your plan then, Mrs. Fitzwilliam? The English way of saying something cutting in a drawing room?”

“No,” said Elizabeth, “though I cannot deny that is a very English way of settling a problem.”

Mrs. Kearney was contemplating the inside of a cabinet and roused herself at that. “I have a solution.”

“Oh, aye, the Cantonese way,” said Mrs. MacDougal, looking animated. “Punching and kicking them all to death with your kung vodoo or what it's called? I've a brother with the East India Company, who said he saw a Chinese monk kick a man in the head once.”

Mrs. Kearney said, “That is not the Cantonese way,” in a tone that implied that the Cantonese method of conflict resolution was too fine a thing to be wasted on a situation as insignificant as being held captive by the French.

Mrs. MacDougal looked disappointed. Mrs. Kirke asked, “What do you propose then? Sticking them with needles in specific places, that will cause instant death?”

“We are ladies,” said Elizabeth, hastily, seeing her Mrs. Kearney was beginning to be offended. “If we wish to assassinate someone, we ought to poison them.”

“Exactly,” said Mrs. Kearney. “And we are British ladies. We must do it the British way.”

“Which is?” Mrs. Kirke promoted.

Mrs. Kearney delicately removed several bottles of laudanum from the cabinet. “We force opium on people without their knowledge or consent and then take unscrupulous advantage of the resulting weakness.”

The impressed silence with which the other ladies met this pronouncement was not untinted with embarrassment.

Elizabeth said, at last, “I cannot deny that is _very_ British.”

 

***

 

Elizabeth was doctoring the pease soup with a generous dose of laudanum when the colonel of dragoons remembered that the British ladies were supposed to be guests and knocked on the door. She hastily stoppered the bottle and plunged it into the nearest sack— of flour. The top layer of flour floofed out and all over her.

The colonel of dragoons stepped imperiously into the kitchen as Elizabeth was coughing and trying to wipe off some of the flour.

“Madame your wife has tasked us with cooking dinner,” explained Mrs. Kirke.

“Madame is not my wife,” said the colonel.

“Is she... your sister?”

The colonel permitted himself an amused half-smile. “She is not.”

Elizabeth felt very flustered. She was not supposed to know of the existence of courtesans, let alone be beholden to them, or owe them life debts. The only real experience she had with the demi-monde was Marjorie and Mary Crawford whispering gossip to her behind their fans at the opera or the theatre. She wondered if she could just pretend Ninon was just an opera singer, as she pretended all the camp followers without husbands, fathers, or brothers were just washerwomen or seamstresses.

The colonel waved in Lieutenant de Lacey. “Watch these ladies,” said he. “I do not know what Ninon and de Valmont mean by having our enemies cook for us, but that seems to me a great tactical error. Make sure you recognize all of the ingredients they put into the dishes. You and your men will taste each one as they go out, to ensure you are invested in your work.”

As they had already put laudanum into the soup, the gravy, the roast, the sauces for the peas, asparagus, and turnips, this was rather a belated precaution, but the English ladies all cast their eyes downwards, pretending they were possessed of every womanly virtue and would never dream of serving _bouef au opium_ for dinner.

The colonel asked, “I suppose you play, Madame Fitzwilliam.”   

“A little, sir.”

He grunted in acknowledgement, and with an economical turn of his left wrist, invited Elizabeth to precede him out of the kitchen. When she was unable to keep her anxiety from shewing, added a curt, “Ninon has been forced to accompany herself as of late. There is a pianoforte in the parlor. You will play it. Come now.” He turned and strode off before Elizabeth had time to unpin her apron.

She tried to beat the lingering flour off her apron and mostly failed at this. There was a generous smear of beef fat on the skirt of her apron, from her clumsy attempts at helping with the roast, that caused a sort of cake to form. How had she managed to get quite so dirty in the space of a quarter hour? No wonder her mother had kept her out of the kitchen.

Elizabeth entered a sitting room filled with exhausted, dirty officers, passing around bread and bottles of wine, and their accompanying ladies. She sighed to see that a couple of them had liberated some of the gowns belonging to the ladies of her own regiment. There was one brunette in Elizabeth’s own favorite gown of jonquil satin and its overdress of white Italian crepe. She supposed the ladies had lost all their clothing when King Joseph lost his chamberpot and his dignity and could not entirely blame them for their attire. (She did blame the French woman for looking better in the gown than Elizabeth herself looked, however. The injustice of this struck Elizabeth with an almost foolish bitterness.) The French assembled did not entirely break off their conversations when they saw her, but most of them looked at her curiously, and the brunette in Elizabeth’s gown giggled. The colonel paid no attention to this, but marched over to where Ninon, still in hussar uniform, was talking to a private half inside the body of a large pianoforte.

“Madame Fitzwilliam plays,” said the colonel. “I shall be back soon; I must look in on the horses.”

He strode off. Ninon said brightly, “I am very glad to have an accompanist once again. I can play well enough to pick out my part, and to accompany myself on songs I know well, but I am a singer. I prefer to focus on the voice over the piano.”

Elizabeth looked curiously at the private inside the piano.

“Erard here was a piano maker before he was conscripted,” said Ninon.

“He does not accompany you?”

The private snorted and, removing himself from the interior of the piano held out his right hand— or rather, his right hook. “Pleased to meet a fellow musician, madame.”

Elizabeth gingerly shook the hook, to the laughter of Erard and Ninon.

“Do you know any Mozart?” asked Ninon, as Erard dove back into the innards of the pianoforte. “Cherubino, from his ‘Marriage of Figaro,’ is my most famous role.”

“Yes, I am very well acquainted with the opera. It is my husband’s favorite. I think I could give you an....” She searched for the right word in French. “An approximation of the orchestration without the sheet music.”

“Perfect, for I lost it all when we lost Vitoria.”

When Erard was done, Ninon asked Elizabeth to first practice some scales and arpeggios. Elizabeth did so, feeling as if she was once again struggling through a lesson from Georgiana’s music tutor, but the second time through Ninon began warming up herself. She had a truly beautiful voice; Elizabeth was so impressed she accidentally forgot what key she was in.

“G,” said Erard, amused.

“Oh yes, of course.” Elizabeth was flustered enough to make a second error. She accidentally began in on the introduction to the duet ‘Via resti servita’ instead of Cherubino’s first aria, ‘Non so più cosa son.’

“That is the duet between Susanna and Marcellina,” said Ninon, not unkindly. “Cherubino has no part in it.”

“My apologies,” said Elizabeth, stopping, embarrassed.

“I suppose you sing Suzanna’s part? You sound more like a light soprano than a mezzo to my ear.”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, a little surprised. “With my sister-in-law as Marcelina.” She smiled at the memory of Marjorie's interpretation of the scheming Marcellina. Only Lady Catherine de Bourgh and the Earl of Matlock had failed to notice it was a not-so-subtle caricature of Lady Catherine.

“You must sing one of Susanna’s arias when I have done; it has been too long since I heard her part.” Nanon sounded wistful. “Comic pieces have become so rare.”

Elizabeth’s accompaniment to Cherubino’s arias comprised of improvisation on chords she remembered rather than anything Mozart had actually set down, but the real appeal of her playing and singing had always been her spirit and sense of the comic, and never her technical skill. She fancied she did not disgrace herself, and though her voice shook with nerves, she made it through Susanna’s aria to Cherubino, “Venite, inginocchiatevi,” with enough vivacity to make up for any missed notes or flaws in her Italian. It was rather encouraging to have so talented as a performer as Ninon applaud her when she had finished.

She was less thrilled that Colonel de Valmont came to the piano when she was finished and, quite obviously looking her up and down said, “Brava, Madamina— played with great... imagination. I wonder if you cook with the same technical skill?”

Ninon’s laugh sounded like a glissando.

Elizabeth fought a scowl; she thought she had done rather well, considering the circumstances.

“I certainly hope you serve better,” said Colonel de Valmont. “I believe your friends in the kitchen have now finished.”

Elizabeth had not realized she was to serve dinner, as well as cook it. She was about as good a servant as she was a chef, which was to say: not at all.

The soup tureen was heavy and it was difficult for her to balance it in one arm while using the other to ladle; she slopped pease soup on the top half of her apron, to the amused titters of the crowd. The more disheveled she was, the happier they were. Elizabeth did not mind. If they were looking at her with vengeance in mind, she was glad to be an object of ridicule, rather than desire.

“And what... is this?” asked the colonel of dragoons, looking skeptically at his bowl.

“This is pease soup,” said Elizabeth, trying to ladle it out. “A very common British dish.”

“It is rather bitter,” commented an officer of dragoons.

‘That is because of the laudanum,’ thought Elizabeth.

A wife— or possibly a mistress— in a riding habit made a face. “And the British enjoy this?”

“Yes, madame, very often.”

“We should invade England with sauces rather than canon,” said an infantry major, to roars of laughter. “We would be welcomed as liberators.”

Elizabeth managed to make it round with the soup, and then was escorted back to the kitchen. Mrs. MacDougal was basting the roast with a grim expression and a saucepan full of gravy and laudanum. “If they aren't asleep by the time we bring out the cheese,” said she, _sotto voce,_ as the soldiers guarding them slurped their pease soup with evident enjoyment, “then I have lost all faith in opium.”

Elizabeth was summoned to clear away the soup bowls, and then to bring in all the vegetable dishes, while trying not to look too hopeful when someone exclaimed, “How tired I am!” The roast was a horrible struggle. By the time she had managed to actually lug it from the kitchen and set it on the table, most of the guests were yawning, and a couple of the younger men were nodding off. Alas, Lieutenant de Lacey was still awake enough to take them back to the kitchen and lock them in again.

“Hellfire and damnation,” said Mrs. MacDougal, vexed by the click of the key in the lock. “What use, all this laudanum, if we are still locked into the damned kitchen?”

“Watch your language, Mrs. MacDougal,” said Mrs. Kearney.

“I shall not!” she hissed. “There's only soldierly language that can describe our current situation. We are _fucked_. We are _fucked_ if those bastards wake up and we are still here!”

Elizabeth looked wildly about the kitchen, but no windows or doors had appeared since they were first locked in. There was the door to the house and the door to the scullery.

“Did guards on both ends test the soup?” asked Elizabeth.

There came the sound of snores from the scullery door.

“Aye,” said Mrs. MacDougal, with a droll look.

“We should split up and try to pick the locks on both doors,” said Mrs. Kirke. “Mrs. MacDougal and I will take the one to the house.”

Elizabeth and Mrs. Kearney had the more unlikely task of unlocking the heavy scullery door, with its older, heavier lock. Elizabeth’s frustration rose with every snore from their guard outside.

“Is there a noise to show us it worked?” asked Mrs. Kearney, as she and Elizabeth wiggled hairpins into the keyhole. “Is there a feeling? How do we know?”

“I really have no idea,” said Elizabeth. “I am used to using hairpins on locks of hair rather than door locks.” She sat back on her heels, feeling infuriated. How could she be defeated by a door? A piece of wood, a heavy lock, hinges so old they were rusting—

Elizabeth considered these a moment.

“I do not think we will have much success with the lock,” said Mrs. Kearney. “Sun Tsu might urge me to think of all sides of my enemy.”

“More than inside and outside?” asked Elizabeth, still frowning at the hinges.

“Yes— for the door has a top and a bottom. It has hinges as well as a lock.”

Hearing them put on such terms of equality crystallized Elizabeth’s thinking; she stood, wiped her hands on her skirt rather than her filthy apron, and pulled at the pin on the bottom-most hinge of the door. It slid out with a rusty screech of protest.

She and Mrs. Kearney shared an astonished look, and then rushed to try and pull out the other two. Mrs. Kearney had to run for a stool to reach the top one.

“Here goes,” said Elizabeth, when she and Mrs. Kearney had shewn each other the pins they had pulled free. She pulled on the middle hinge as she might the knob of a door. The door swung open, revealing two sleeping guards, and, about ten feet away— the stables.

Mrs. Kearney went running for the other two. Elizabeth stripped off her apron and hoped the pease soup had worked as well on the guests in the dining room as it had on the guards.

 

***

 

There were only two men unsaddling and tending to the last of the dragoons’ horses; the rest of the soldiers were at a campfire, crowding each other away from a pot of stew, and making jokes too colloquial for Elizabeth to understand. Mrs. Kirke had been leading the way and then held them back, pointing to the campfire.

Elizabeth was not sure what she meant by it, but sure enough, a soldier turned to the guards in front of the stable and called out a question. The guards called something back, the first soldier insisted, and the two guards very quickly abandoned their posts to join in the scrum about the campfire.

Mrs. Kirke nodded; Elizabeth seized the back of Mrs. Kearney’s sash and kept her head down as they ran into the stables. Once they were in the main open area leading on either side to the stalls, Elizabeth felt a brief flash of panic. She had not actually thought they would get this far. What exactly were they to do now?

“It’s five miles to where the regiments are stationed,” whispered Mrs. Kirke, “but thank God you just need to point your horse downhill to get there.”

There were three horses still saddled; Mrs. Kearney volunteered to sit postillion, which left Elizabeth in the uncomfortable position of having to admit she had no idea how to ride astride or bareback.

Mrs. MacDougal asked rather a personal question about Elizabeth’s marital habits which discomfited Elizabeth, rather than give her any practical idea of what to do.  

“It would be more helpful if you went and untied all the horses, Mrs. MacDougal,” said Mrs. Kirke, hastily. “Come on Mrs. Fitz, I’ll give you a hand. Let’s shorten the stirrups first.”

It felt entirely unnatural to sit astride a horse, and Elizabeth blushed at how much of her legs were exposed by this action.

Mrs. Kirke swung up onto her own saddle, and pulled up Mrs. Kearney to sit behind her, when the doors to the stables creaked open. Colonel de Valmont staggered in and cried, “You damned harpies— what the hell did you put in the food?”

Elizabeth was not inclined to answer, but as Mrs. MacDougal was running up behind Colonel de Valmont with a heavy candlestick, tried to play for time. “Oh, the soup? I can get you the receipt sir, it is mostly dried peas and water... and laudanum.”

Colonel de Valmont swore at her and reached for her horse’s reins, but before he could get close enough, Mrs. MacDougal hit him in the head with the candlestick.

He fell to the ground with a shout.

“Time to go,” said Mrs. Kirke. “Follow me if you can.”

Elizabeth fought to control her horse, which tossed its head and seemed inclined to kick at all the shouting going on before him. Mrs. MacDougal easily jumped up into the saddle of her own horse, and pulling its head around said, “Use your knees to hold on, Mrs. Fitzwilliam!”

Colonel de Valmont grabbed Elizabeth’s horse by its bridle before she could accomplish this. “I warn you,” he rasped, “persist in this foolish attempt to escape, and you shall not like the consequences—”

Nevertheless, she persisted.

Elizabeth pulled hard on the reins of her horse.

Her horse reared and whinnied its displeasure, but Elizabeth held firm.

After having been tossed off her own horse twice before, Elizabeth had been at some pains to learn how to stay on a rearing horse, and was surprised to find it was much easier to accomplish this astride than riding sidesaddle. Colonel de Valmont was too woozy to maintain his grip on the bridle and fell, cursing to the ground. The newly freed horses, hearing the distress of their comrade, all spooked; Elizabeth lengthened the reins, giving her horse its head, and it bolted from the barn.

It was a bit difficult to get her horse to bolt in the direction she wished, especially since the mass of spooked, newly freed horses were galloping madly around it, but again Elizabeth persisted. It did not feel quite right to try and hold onto a horse using her knees— horseriding as a lady was an exercise in balance, rather than strength— but  she held on well enough, and she soon burst from the shelter of the trees into the miles of vineyards stretching down to the road.

This was far easier to traverse, especially since she soon caught up with the other ladies. They galloped hell for leather down the hill. They made very good time. In a little over a half-hour they managed to reach the first picket.

“Halt!” cried an ensign. “In the name of the king, halt!”

“For God’s sake, Beddoe!” exclaimed Mrs. Kirke, slowing the horse to a canter. “It ought to be ‘who goes there’! If the colonel hasn’t lectured you on that twenty times by now, I’m a Norwich fishwife!”

Ensign Beddoe dropped his sword in alarm. “Mrs. Kirke?”

“Yes, go find my husband, will you? The French attacked through the village.”

Four or five privates rushed over to seize the reins of the horses; Elizabeth swung her leg over the pommel of the saddle, in a vague approximation of a proper side-saddle, before anyone could catch a glimpse of her garters.

By the time Mrs. Kearney had been helped down, Colonel Kirke had galloped over and was conferring with his wife. Elizabeth allowed a private to assist her off her horse and to lead her to a dry spot of ground, a little removed from everyone else. Elizabeth took the opportunity to put her head between her shaking knees and to breathe deeply. Her skirts smelled very strongly of roast beef. She had to bite back her nearly hysterical laughter.

“Fitzwilliam!” called Colonel Kirke. “They’ve attacked through the village! They’ve seized the house.”

“Where is Lizzy?” asked Colonel Fitzwilliam, sounding honestly panicked. “Mrs. Kirke, is Mrs. Fitzwilliam with you?”

Elizabeth raised her head. “I am over here, my dear!”

Colonel Fitzwilliam more-or-less jumped off his horse and came over to her at once. “Dear God Lizzy, what happened?”

“Judging by the way they ate,” added Elizabeth, struggling upright, “the French were starving enough to risk smallpox.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam took her into his arms; she was very glad of this, as she wasn’t sure if she was capable of standing yet, and asked, urgently, “Are you alright? Did they— did anyone—”

“Oh no,” Elizabeth assured him, leaning her head against his shoulder. The gold braid was cool and pleasantly familiar against her forehead, and the gloved hand stroking the hair at the nape of her neck soothed her, as it had done since earliest childhood. “All thanks to the incomparable Ninon! I served her a jade’s trick, and I am quite sorry for it, but there was nothing else to be done. Mrs. Kirke, Mrs. MacDougal, Mrs. Kearney and I were trapped in the kitchen. So we served the French officers their dinners with a fine laudanum sauce.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed seemingly in spite of himself. “I don’t know why I was even worried. But who is Ninon? What did she do for you? Wait—” he released her to pat the pockets of his coat and produced a flask “—have a little _brandy de jerez_ , my dear, to settle your nerves.”

Elizabeth gave a more coherent account after this, and was very happy to then sit with a horse blanket over her shoulders, sipping brandy, while her husband and Colonel Kirke mounted an attack. They were not at a significant disadvantage, for all that they were at the bottom of the hill. Up at the top, all was chaos. Nearly two thirds of the officers and their ladies could not be roused from their laudanum-induced slumbers, and all the others were still significantly impaired. The dragoons were still trying to round up all their horses when the first wave of troops crested the hills and burst out of the trees. The battle was very brief.

Wellington himself was rather astonished at the efficacy of this capture, but glad of it. “We can trade them all to the garrison at Pamplona, for the British officers held prisoner here,” said he. “I’d rather more Frenchies were behind the wall, eating up their supply than not. How many officers do you have to trade, colonels?”

The list astonished him so much, he interrupted, “By God, you cannot mean you have the parole of every officer in two regiments! How the the devil was this accomplished?”

“Clever housewifery,” replied Colonel Fitzwilliam, with a grin.

 

***

 

About a year later, Elizabeth once again saw the incomparable Ninon— as Cherubino, on the stage of the Opera Comique. At first Elizabeth was inclined to doubt herself. She had not thought about Ninon since Pamplona, and even then, it was only to insist no harm came to her, or to the other French ladies, and to wish them luck after the prisoner exchange had been finalized. It was only after “Non più andrai,” the aria in which Figaro described how Cherubino, a pageboy to a count, would have to adjust to the life of a soldier, that Elizabeth realized it _was_ really Ninon. This Figaro spent the song dressing up Cherubino in a sky blue hussar’s uniform.

“Richard,” she whispered, as the crowd called for an encore.

He reluctantly tore his attention from the stage. ‘Non più andrai’ was one of the marching songs for the Coldstream Guards, where he had passed not an insignificant portion of his career, and his favorite piece in the opera. “What?”

“That’s Ninon!”

“Who?”

“Cherubino— the woman playing Cherubino! She quite saved me when Mrs. Kirke, Mrs. MacDougal, Mrs. Kearney and I were taken prisoner by the French. I still feel rather awful about doctoring her meal as well, though I cannot see what else I could have done, given the circumstances.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam leaned slightly over the railing of their box. Figaro was preening and bowing; all the other actors had halted while waiting to see if Figaro would sing his aria a second time. “By God! So it is. I am glad to see she made it out of Pamplona alive.”

“And back to France!”

Figaro went over to the edge of the stage, to talk to the conductor. As they started up “Non più andrai,” again, Elizabeth asked, “I suppose— it would not be... acceptable for me to call on her, or to send her anything.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam reached over and patted her hand. “Not even in Paris, my dear.”

“I cannot think it right to ignore her. I owe her more than that.”

“It would not be quite proper—”

“Oh, proper,” said Elizabeth, a little annoyed. “I know it is not, but it was not proper for me to ride astride either. Women are often forced by circumstance to engage in wildest impropriety to avoid worse fates. Come, darling, you know I have never been very prudish.”

Colonel Fitzwiliam raised her gloved hand to his lips. “No, and you are not one to balk at unconventional attachments.”

“I believe that’s what made you realize you loved me.”

“Oh I knew well before that. You are determined to... do what?”

“Something to apologize for the bad turn I served her.”

“Then I shall think of something. Give me a minute.” Elizabeth was convinced he had a plan in mind, and had only pretended not to so he could listen to the aria uninterrupted, for as soon as it was done he said, “You cannot visit her, or ask her to visit you— but you could ask her to perform at your salon some afternoon.”

Elizabeth took up this idea with alacrity and, taking out one of her calling cards, scribbled an apology on the back of it, and had it sent backstage, with her compliments.

Colonel Fitzwilliam was relating the story of Elizabeth’s great escape to the other members of their box when one of the French guests said, “Ah! Ninon! Poor creature, one hardly hears of her these days.”

“What do you mean, sir?” asked Elizabeth.

He lifted his shoulder in a very Gallic shrug. “I mean only that she relied upon the wrong protector. Her colonel whatever-his-name-was followed his true beloved, Napoleon, into exile on Elba. She is utterly alone, and tainted with the stain of Bonapartism. I am astonished they let her sing onstage tonight.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam aimed at her a smirk that said, ‘did I not deliver?’ Elizabeth laughed at him, but had to agree that the invitation she had offered did now seem an eminently suitable method of repayment.

A servant returned with a message from Ninon, accepting Elizabeth’s invitation at once.

They kept sending each other notes during the intermissions, and settled on the date that would suit them both best. Elizabeth was rather anxious about the whole affair until Ninon wrote a longish note on a sheet of scented paper, confirming the baron’s take on her current unpopularity.

‘ _I would be indeed grateful for the opportunity to please a British audience,_ ’ she concluded, ‘ _though perhaps not at the cost of another English dinner._ ’

 


	5. In which Miss Crawford annoys Mr. Darcy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Comment-fic from chapter 14!

At an otherwise very dull ball hosted by Mrs. Palmer, Mary was quite shocked to see Mr. Darcy dancing down the set with a pretty, dark-haired creature that a few whispers confirmed as one of the Honorable Miss Mortons. Mary's partner (and Marjorie's favorite brother), Major Lawerence Spencer of the Horse Guards, said, "That cannot be Marjorie's cousin Darcy?"

"It is," said Mary. "Dancing, no less!"

Lawrence turned to stare, before belatedly catching the musical cue and offering his hands to Mary. As they linked arms behind their backs and circled each other, he said, "And here was Marjorie telling me I must write her as soon as her dear sister Mrs. Fitzwilliam re-married. She wanted me to give a description of her dress."

The dance briefly separated them.

"I really do not see it," said Lawrence, once they had finished weaving in and out of the other couples. "Mr. Darcy certainly lurks by her side more than he does anything else, but by that measure, he must be passionately in love with windows and fireplaces."

"Do not misrepresent what I told Marjorie and she then told you, as if it were her own idea." Mary was beginning to be annoyed with the quadrille; she had to wait several measures before she could clarify, "I do not think he is in love with her. All _I_ see is that Darcy is uncomfortable with how attracted he is to Mrs. Fitzwilliam, and for someone with his character, that can only either end in marriage, or years of emotional repression, resulting in some inevitable explosion of feeling that leaves Mrs. Fitzwilliam in utter shock."

"Hm," said Lawrence skeptically. When they were next reunited, he said, "But the colonel and Mrs. Fitzwilliam were a match, and Mrs. Fitzwilliam is romantic."

"Yes, but she wants children. She would remarry to have them, I think."

When they reunited again, Lawrence asked, "Mr. Darcy cannot need an heir so soon; he has his sister."

"Men always want sons."

Lawrence favored with a droll look, to show that here, at least, was one man who wanted no part in the messy business of procreation. Mary laughed in spite of herself. At the next turn of the dance, Lawrence added, "Well, take care that your friend's desire for children and Mr. Darcy's for an heir overlap at the same time, if you mean to have them married. Miss Morton has just made him laugh."

Mary was rather offended on Mrs. Fitzwilliam's behalf, and, at the end of the set, temporarily banished Lawrence to the refreshment table, to better sail over to Darcy and beg him take her to where Mrs. Fitzwilliam was sitting with a knot of other young widows. Darcy deposited Miss Morton's hand onto the arm of her brother, Lord Morton, as if slotting a book back onto a library shelf, and grudgingly offered Mary his arm.

"And how did you like your partner, sir?"

"Well enough."

"She made you laugh, I think."

"Yes; she was telling me of her interactions with my Aunt Catherine's friend, Mrs. Ferrars."

"Enchanting creatures, the Miss Mortons!" Mary exclaimed. "All of them pretty, accomplished-- and with thirty thousand pounds apiece! Few could fail to be enchanted at such a sum."

"I bow to your judgment in these matters," said Darcy, ungraciously.

"Yes, a good match," said Mary, with a sigh. "But poor Mrs. Fitzwilliam! The new Mrs. Darcy will take one look at so pretty and witty a widow and pack up dear Mrs. Fitz and send to her father's estate in Hertfordshire, to languish among the wheat fields, or into the wilds of Derbyshire, to be attacked by Luddites. I daresay the Luddites will come off the worse for it. She will spin a jenny so ingeniously she will trip them all up in the warp threads."

Darcy seemed amused, despite himself.

"And when she is gone from London--banished, rather-- who shall I talk to? Marjorie is in Tahiti for months more. Really, Mr. Darcy, you cannot be so cruel as to let a mere Miss Morton send a _Mrs. Fitzwilliam_ away from London."

"I assure you," said Darcy, "that will never happen."


	6. In which Darcy is a goddamn mess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Clara, for coming up with the beautiful phrase, "The Boner of Shame and Regret." More chapter 14 comment-fic. With thanks to Liz and Kiralamouse for some lines I stole from their comments.

She had kissed him.

This warred incessantly with the second thought: she did not mean to.

Darcy, feeling foolishly sentimental, and more disturbed by his feelings than he had in some time, sat in his book room and tried to think. He closed his eyes and put his hand to his lips, trying to banish the memory of her lips on the corner of his. But the more he pushed it away, the more it returned to him. Her willful misinterpretation of the riddle, her laughter as Georgiana and Kitty’s friends unanimously declared her the loser, his objections, the hand on the lapel, unbalancing him, then her kiss—

“I have brought you your tea.”

There was a rattle of porcelain and silver on wood. He opened his eyes to see Elizabeth setting down the tea set. 

He sprang to his feet and said, stupidly, “Elizabeth.”

In the privacy of his own mind, Darcy had always called her Elizabeth. For years, it had seemed too revelatory to call her so out loud; all that he thought of, when he thought of Elizabeth, would be heard in his tone. ‘Elizabeth’ had felt strange to say, and sounded oddly hesitant to his own ear. He always feared he was not saying it as he ought, as an indifferent man, or merely a relative might. He avoided it while she was married to Richard— then she was always Mrs. Fitzwilliam, a reminder of what she had chosen, of the life she had built for herself, of the happiness she had with a deserving man who adored her— and tried, for a time, to avoid it when she was Richard’s widow. 

But when she was living in his house, her wardrobe brightening with her mood, it was impossible to keep up the guard of formal propriety that had preserved him so far. She was Elizabeth. It slipped out with involuntary naturalness, and she responded to it with such affectionate pleasure, it became impossible to stop. 

Even now she smiled. “Yes?”

How she sparkled this evening— not just in her witticisms, but in the mourning gown Darcy had always liked best, a clinging black muslin that winked in the light; and in the diamonds at her throat and ears. How long had it been since she had worn anything but jet? It was romanticism of the most quotidien to see her softly glimmering in the firelight, and think her imbued with all that was best of dark and bright, and all the untouchable, distant beauty of the night sky. She was nervous, though; there was a hard-edged, crystalline quality to her sparkle, like stargazing through the sharper air of a cold winter. 

Elizabeth tried, as ever, to hide her discomfort with a joke. She folded her hands before her in an attitude of teasing contrition and said, “I paid my forfeit incorrectly, sir, and I fear I have offended you thereby. After all your kindness to me this past week, I cannot let that stand. Might I have your leave to pay it again?”

A third thought halted the unprofitable dialogue from earlier: Perhaps she did mean to kiss you.

His defenses began to crumble.

Thoughts tumbled over one another so rapidly after this, Darcy hardly knew what he was doing by coming out from behind his desk. A strange desperation took hold of him and it seemed to him perfectly clear that this was the one chance he would ever have to kiss Elizabeth as he had always, painfully, secretly wished to. 

Her cheek was soft against his palm, the spangled muslin at her hip felt thin and insubstantial against his fingertips. The space between them had never seemed so small, so easily bridged. Darcy leaned down and kissed her.

Elizabeth seemed surprised, but before this could send him into agonies of self-doubt, she melted obligingly in his arms, turning her face up and putting her hand to his shoulder so that he might kiss her more thoroughly. Every last defense fell away; for perhaps the first time in his life, no inhibitions touched him. There was only Elizabeth, warm and willing in his arms, returning his kiss. He had never allowed himself to imagine with any detail how she might respond, how she might grip the tails of his coat to pull him closer, how sweetly she would not only accept, but return his passion. Strange scraps of poetry, half remembered, drifted through his brain, the only context for a pleasure that had seemed to him as impossible, as strangely untethered to reality as Donne’s lines, ‘ _ If ever any beauty I did see,/ Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.’ _

It seemed a golden age before he allowed himself to admit the want for more; he deepened the kiss, sliding his hand up into her hair, and felt something give. Elizabeth broke gently from him to look behind her; her widow’s veil had fallen to the floor. 

Reality began to intrude, but he could not yet pull himself from so longed-for an idyll;  he pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth, her cheek, her eyelid, and rested for a moment with his hand clenched in her hair, his arm about her waist, and his cheek against her temple.

Then, with a great effort of self-will, he released her. “I am sorry,” he managed to say, in a tone lower and rougher than he generally spoke. 

Elizabeth stared at him, in what seemed to be shock.

The first cold slivers of misery began to prick at him— what had he done? Had he ruined the friendship they had so carefully cultivated? How could he have done this, have taken such liberties with not just a widow, but a family member, so newly out of mourning (not even out of mourning; he had ripped the widow’s veil from her hair), who had just two nights ago, fled into the unlit gardens so no one would witness the grief she felt at the anniversary of her husband’s death— and her husband! His cousin Richard, who had been more like a brother, who had loved Elizabeth with an uncomplicated sincerity, with whom Elizabeth had planned to spend the rest of her life— 

Elizabeth said something; Darcy, who had shut his eyes against the storm of self-recrimination, struggled to put up, once again, the high walls of propriety that had protected him so far. “Mrs. Fitzwilliam,” he managed, putting up the oldest barrier against his shameful desire, “I wish you would release me.”

He missed the warmth of her hands when she had moved away. “My apologies to your valet. I have ruined his work for the evening.”

Darcy looked at her despairingly. “I am sorry, Mrs. Fitzwilliam. I ought not to have—”

“I was not... expecting this, but it was not—it is not unwelcome.” She looked at him, troubled, and then bent to pick up her veil.

When she rose, Darcy had once again reasserted control over himself and said, quietly, “We have an early morning tomorrow, Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”

Elizabeth tucked her comb and veil into his coat pocket and said, in an uncertain voice, “It has been over a year and a day. I was tired of wearing it. Do not reproach yourself for taking what I was already inclined to give up.”

How like her, thought Darcy, despairingly, to try and comfort  _ him _ , when she herself was clearly in need of it. He involuntarily thought of sitting on the bench in the garden, two nights ago, as she brushed the hair off his forehead, in innocent, familial love. She had been so lost in her grief, and she had comforted  _ him—  _ why had he done this? Things had been so good before— 

“Good night,” he managed. 

Elizabeth dipped automatically into a curtsey and walked out. Darcy watched the train of her gown wind its winking way out the door before he allowed himself to bury his face in his hands. 

This slight movement made the delicate, trailing ends of her veil brush against his thigh. 

He scowled into his palms, furious to have such evidence that he had never managed to conquer so shameful a desire. "Damn it," he said. But the hard edge of desire did not dull, and his guilt lengthened about him like shadows.   
  


 


	7. In which Mr. Darcy is Not Impressed with Lord Byron

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For kiralamouse, who suggested Darcy a) would like to read medieval chivarlic romances and b) be great fun to get in the same room as Lord Byron, and all you lovely people who wanted to know about the "drunker, more poetic moods" mentioned in Darcy's first POV outtake. 
> 
> The poem at the end, "Love and Death," was actually written in 1824, for Lord Byron’s page, Lukas Chalandritsanos, and not published until 1887, but I figured Byron writing a final stanza of a poem some twelve years in advance was probably a forgivable error in a fic where he has a long talk about King Arthur with Mr. Darcy.

_August 1812_

If there was anything the Fitzwilliams excelled at, thought Darcy, it was having exceedingly uncomfortable house parties. To avoid talking, or otherwise engaging in the madness that seemed to have swept through the company, Darcy applied himself to the wine during dinner, and the port afterwards.

It was not enough to make tolerable the main entertainment after dinner, i.e. “Lady Stornoway and a host of anxious Spencers try to pull Lady Caroline Lamb back under control, with absolutely no success.” Darcy thought, for a moment, to offer a game of billiards to the honorable Mr. William Lamb, who always seemed to find himself thoroughly unequal to the challenges posed by his wife. However, the idea of hearing the honorable William Lamb feebly defend his wife’s obvious pursuit of another houseguest for an hour was only slightly better than witnessing Lady Caroline’s bad behavior in person.

While Lady Granville and Lady Morpeth took turns trying to persuade their cousin to perhaps play cards with them, embroider, play the piano, sing duets, or do in fact anything else, instead of running off in search of Lord Byron (who had buggered off to God alone knew where), Darcy beat a hasty retreat to the library. He had a letter in his pocket from Richard; that could serve as an excuse.

The letter brought unexpected good tidings:

 _‘I have no doubt,_ ’ Richard wrote, _‘that you have hidden in the library to read this. The last I was at Matlock was fortunately a happy occasion and I had no use for my usual “reinforcements.” As an apology to you for whatever nonsense our nearest and dearest have dragged you into, I therefore offer it to yo_ _u. Somewhere in the library is a bottle of really excellent port hand-carried by me (or rather, my batman) from Portugal. There are many benefits to my profession— though right now I think the chief of them is the fact that campaign season keeps me from attending any summer house parties! I have the honor to be_

_Yr obt servant,_

_R. Fitzwilliam.’_

Knowing Richard’s sense of humor, Darcy was unsurprised to find a bottle of port and a glass tucked behind a copy of Debrett’s _Peerage_. He spent some time sipping the port (which was really excellent), idly looking through the shelves. He was already feeling too drunk for a history, and hadn’t the attention span for a novel. Darcy picked up a play to try and see if it would capture his interest, but found he wasn’t in the mood for anything new. He wanted the comfort of a familiar book, one that would not surprise him or startle him.

The spine of _Le Morte d’Arthur_ was cracked in multiple places, the edges of the leather worn to whiteness, the pages stained and dog-earred. It had a familiar, friendly look, like an old schoolfellow one had not seen in many years. Darcy took it down and drew up around himself the old stories, as if pulling the blankets up about him on a cold evening. It soothed a deep ache to lose himself in plots and characters he associated with less complicated times, sunnier ones, where he had no secrets, and was not expected to take part in highly dramatic house parties that everyone present would later regret attending.

Unfortunately, the two guests Darcy liked least pursued each other to the library. Lord Byron limped in first, looking harassed, and slamming the door shut behind him. “Caro Lamb isn’t here, is she?”

Before Darcy could even determine whether or not Byron wished to meet her or wished to hide from her, the door handle rattled. Byron swore and dove under a desk. Darcy was appalled and annoyed. Lady Caroline Lamb got the brunt of this when she flung the doors open.

She tried to recover with a haughty, “Mr. Darcy, sir.”

Darcy glowered, but good manners dictated a gentleman should stand upon the arrival of a lady to a room— regardless of whether or not that lady deserved to be called one— and so he stood. “Lady Caroline.”

She jutted her chin out defiantly. “I— I wonder if you have seen Lord Byron.”

“More than I care to,” said Darcy.

Lady Caroline glared at him.

Darcy’s guards were low, with alcohol and annoyance. He could not help but say, “I did see your husband in the sitting room, madam. No doubt you neglected to notice he was there.”

She stormed out and slammed the door shut behind her.

“She pursues me like a greyhound after a rabbit,” complained Byron, crawling out from under the table. “Ne’er was there a Fury more intent on the destruction of a man!”

Darcy did not know what to say to this, so he said nothing. He sat down, refilled his glass, and turned his attention back to his book. But Lord Byron never let a marked display of disinterest deter him.

“I see you have decided, along with me, that discretion is the better part of valor,” said Byron, brushing himself off. “Is that port?”

“I regret to say I do not have a skull for you to drink it out of,” said Darcy.

To Darcy’s extreme irritation, Byron sauntered over and drank straight from the bottle. He looked tragic and suffering as he did so, which Darcy thought ridiculous considering how fine a port it was.

“And what do you read, sir?”

“Words,” replied Darcy.

Byron peered over Darcy’s shoulder at the book. “ _Le Morte d’Arthur_ , is it?”

Darcy turned the page and ignored him.

“Here is a man unlike any other, ignoring the ladies to sit like Don Quixote, studying medieval romances,” said Byron, arranging himself disobligingly on the chair opposite Darcy’s. “I hope there are no windmills in your corner of England.”

“We keep ourselves to agriculture and coal mining in Derbyshire,” said Darcy, curtly.

“Off to Spain, then, with Beau Wellesley and all his gallants? I know one of the Fitzwilliams is over there, or is going there. Or was it a Spenser? It is so disobliging of Lady Stornoway to have come from such a numerous family only to marry into another one.”

“The Earl of Matlock’s second son, Colonel Fitzwilliam, is presently in Spain,” said Darcy, and somehow managed to add, “with his wife,” in a tone of relative indifference.

“Wife?” asked Byron, raising an eyebrow. “I always thought Colonel Fitzwilliam and Major Spencer had rather similar... careers, shall we say. I could have sworn I heard a rumor to that effect, some sort of dreadful hushed up business where he was abruptly pulled from Eton and put in the army.”

“Colonel and Mrs. Fitzwilliam are a match,” said Darcy, curtly.

Byron held up his hands. “You Fitzwilliams and your one true matches! I cannot understand how a _Spenser_ married into this family with any degree of complacency.”

“Lady Stornoway and Lord Stornoway are—”

“—a match! God, man, you needn’t defend your ideology with _quite_ such vehemence. I am curious, not condemnatory. What was your name again? Caro said it but I am making a point of not listening to a word Caro says any more.”

“Darcy,” he replied, tersely. “ _Fitzwilliam_ Darcy.”

Byron raised the bottle to him in a toast Darcy did not reciprocate. “You know,” said Byron, setting down the bottle, “on the whole, I am rather glad to hear of your… cousin, I suppose? I am glad to hear of his taking a Mrs. Fitzwilliam to Spain. There are so few men in England who do not let themselves be constrained by sex, and realize that there is love in all mankind. And for a _Fitzwilliam_ to do so— well! Perhaps our society is changing for the better. I dearly love to see a political family shaken up. A toast, then, to Mrs. Fitzwilliam!”

After a brief struggle with himself, Darcy put aside his book and picked up his glass.

“Good man,” said Byron, clinking the bottle against the glass. “Bottoms up.”

Darcy had drunk enough that he supposed another glass would make little material change to his temper or self-control. He drank.

“Shall I refill…?”

Darcy eyed the mouth of the bottle. “I thank you, but no.”

Byron grinned. “Fastidious fellow! I wonder what you make of Caro.”

Darcy struggled to control his expression and ended up saying, "I find Caroline to be an infelicitous name. The women who must bear it take great pleasure in the pursuit of gentlemen indifferent to them." 

Byron sighed and looked long-suffering. “She hangs about my neck like Coleridge’s wretched albatross. Whenever she is with me, she thinks she must be outrageous; whenever she is apart, she must be maudlin. Oh that she had more than one note to her lyre! And how she plucks it! The message is enough to satisfy even you Fitzwilliams: we are soulmates, we are soulmates! We are a match! But heaven help the girl— she knows we are not.” Byron raised the bottle and paused, to look consideringly at his left cuff. “My mark has always been… more ambiguous than anyone would like. Except for me. I rather enjoy it.”

Feeling rather tired of this conversation, Darcy reached for his book again.

“Do I _bore you_ , sir?” asked Byron, with mock indignation. “Or are you so enraptured with chivalric romance? You do know I wrote _Childe Harold_ , do you not? Or perhaps you are unaware a ‘childe’ is a man readying himself for knighthood, in the medieval tradition.”

“I am well aware of both facts.”

“Then perhaps you do not know what chiefly interests me in the medieval romance.”

Darcy profoundly did not care.

Setting down the bottle to better gesticulate, Byron said, “The wonderful mess of their tropes. No one is ever in love with the right person! No one is ever attracted to their soulmate at first, and if they are, their soulmate tends to be soulmates with someone else.”

Darcy wondered why he ever put himself within the reach of his uncle Matlock and his circle. He was always finding himself in these uncomfortable situations. 

“Chivalric love so captivates the English mind. Not just then, but now. It has always excited _my_ imagination to quite a high degree. There is something gripping in that notion of a man doomed by an uncaring, unjust and ungenerous universe, to wander the earth with misery in his heart and defiance on his brow. A man who must live apart from the ordinary run of life, for his attempts at it have been met with naught but ruined hopes and disappointment! His suffering justly renders him an object of fascination.”

Darcy swore the port was fogging his brain, otherwise he would not have said, “But it is always an author who condemns their creation to be alone; that does not necessarily reflect the will of the supreme being that organized the actual universe.”

Byron leaned back in his chair, his hair falling over his forehead in a perfectly fatuous way, his expression one of faux-noble suffering. “Ah! A philosopher, have we? Let me assure you, we authors put into our creatures what we ourselves are. Why do Childe Harold’s travels take him where I myself have wandered? Why does he have the particular pain of having his true match married to another?”

A surge of profound irritation filled him. Darcy did not want to have anything in common with Lord Byron. He decided that this, like Byron’s skull cup and melancholic airs, was a front put on to either sell more copies of his books or make him seem more interesting to the ladies. “As to the former,” said Darcy, “I imagine a disinclination for research is at its heart; as to the latter, plagiarism.”

Byron took this for a joke and laughed. “God save me from the prosaic landed gentry! You do not understand me, eh? Well, Turdsworth— beg pardon, Wordsworth— insists a poet must be a man speaking to men. I shall try to adopt some of your phraseology. You said there was mining in your part of Derbyshire, was there not?”

“Yes.”

“Then I offer you this metaphor: the mind of the poet is but the mine from whence he carves out diamonds. The pressures of his experiences, his poetical feeling, his soul-suffering crushes the dull coal of most thought into something sparkling, something enduring, something that lasts an age and is passed down in the generations as a treasure. There is a base level of emotional experience— the coal I mentioned— that all possess, even though our society attempts to deny it or suppress it. And the particular pressures of our society, our insistence that our soulmarks refer _only_ to the one, singular person to whom we are intended to marry, produce a set of fears very specific to our nation.”

“I suppose it is the fear of never finding that person,” said Darcy.

“Close, but no. Our fear is worse. We believe we have only one soulmate in the whole world, in all the ages of this world, yes? Then say, despite all odds, we somehow _find_ that person… only to discover that they are the soulmate _of someone else_ ! How can it be that the system we have so labored to believe in, that we have supported in every public thing we do, works only to isolate us in misery? How can such a system be _right_ if it condemns us to loneliness?”

Darcy felt shaken in spite of himself. He did not like feeling so unexpectedly exposed before anyone, let alone someone he so personally disliked.

“What if,” asked Lord Byron, warming to his theme, “this system in which we have been raised, this idea that forms the backbone of our marriage laws and social customs _is_ right, but we ourselves are somehow wrong?”

“And your answer, I imagine, is that society is the one at fault.”

“Of course it is,” said Byron, leaning back in his chair and smirking. “Travel more Mr. Darcy. It would improve your outlook.”  

“Hm.”

“One of the great lies of the eighteenth century, along with Liebnitz’s notion that this is the best of all possible worlds, is that every soul _has_ a mate. One mate. One person. Ever. Why, Lady Stornoway’s own dear aunt, the Duchess of Devonshire proved how complicated a business it can be. The Duchess was the Duke’s match, but was the Duke’s true match his first, or his second Duchess? Or perhaps both? And I myself fall in love at least three times a day before breakfast. Our experiential knowledge does not match with our received knowledge. I trust my own experience, the evidence of my own senses, over the received wisdom of generations of brow-beaten Englishmen, who must toe the line or be cast into the outer darkness.”

“Do you then believe the trope you mentioned, of a man finding his soulmate, only to realize she is the soulmate of another _—_ do you think that has any basis in reality, or is likewise a product of social conditioning?”

“I think it is both,” said Byron. “I think it is a common enough situation, but it is a situation that exists because of the old structures of belief that undergird our perception of the world. What is keeping the woman from having two husbands? At the same time or at different intervals? Naught but our sense of old custom. All three would be happy together, or in various agreed upon groupings. A cotillion of a marriage _—_ it sounds quite charming.”

“To you, perhaps,” said Darcy, “but to any other Englishman _—_ ”

“I am not interested in any other Englishman,” declared Lord Byron. “Let us return to our hero of courtly romance, who loves in secret from afar _—_ or not even from afar, as I recall. Lancelot always seemed to be haunting Guinevere in the legends. But what could be done? Arthur could not send his best knight from his court, and Lancelot could not be derelict in his duty.”

“But that is an odd case,” said Darcy, “for Arthur’s soulmate was Guinevere, and she married him before her own soulmark appeared, and showed her soulmate to be Lancelot.”

“The more typical romance is for only the knight to know his unhappy position in this triangle, I believe,” said Byron, finishing off the bottle. “I must confess I do like that touch. There are so few emotions our society deems acceptable to display. The fun of it all is to guess at the roiling emotions behind the stoic facade.”

“Even in the case where the emotion this character cannot display is not just unacceptable to his society but to himself?”

“That is courtly love, is it not? A noble character suffering in a long battle with ignoble feelings. It is a subject that ripens well into poetry. I disagree with Turdsworth, poetry is not a man speaking to men but _passion recalled_. The best poems of mine are ones where I could not safely express all I was feeling in the moment.”

“I am glad to hear that to love against one’s will, one’s reason, and one’s character may at least produce a good sonnet,” said Darcy, dryly.

“Love dwells not in our will,” scoffed Byron. “Let us return to unhappy Arthur, married to a woman so nearly his match, who instead is the soulmate of his best knight. Our king is not alone in the world, however. His half-sister Morgause turns out to be his match. Is it so wrong in them to love one another? There are one or two very good ballads of Arthur cursing himself for such love, listing all the reasons why he should not go to Morgause, and many more dreadful ones, but the ballads all end the same. He goes to Morgause. Is it sin if God has brought them together to so understand one another?”

“As the son of that union kills Arthur, perhaps you have your answer.”

“And yet the Hapsburgs marry uncle to niece and cousin to cousin, and they rule half of Europe. Why, they even married one of their number to Napoleon, to get back what he took from them.”

“I suppose it depends upon the closeness of the relation,” said Darcy.

“A half-sister he has met but briefly, and never as adults?”

“The laws of consanguinity forbid it; even in myth, where there is more lassitude for such ideas, the inevitable result is monstrous.”

Byron picked up the bottle and looked hopefully in its empty depths.

Darcy suddenly found himself saying, “You tell me you are a poet, sir. I wonder _—_ a young lady of my acquaintance once believed that a good sonnet could drive away love, quite contrary to Shakespeare. Or received wisdom, as you call it. What is your opinion?”

“Ah, I see the theory you are working towards,” said Byron, interested. “I am glad to see I am bringing you around to my way of thinking. Was all this courtly love the result of medieval troubadors and poets and… whatever Chaucer was. A bureaucrat of some kind? Was it all the result of them trying to pin down unacceptable feelings on paper, so that they stopped feeling them?”

“Perhaps. I think it… difficult for a man _—_ for this character you mention to live if he is always gripped _—"_

“To love strongly but wrongly?” asked Byron. “Hm, a good theory for a prosy man rather than a poet. Take the feeling, put it outside yourself, move on. If one reads a medieval epic as a French fable, then I suppose that is the moral. Those knights are always going on one quest or another, to try and forget their lady loves through good works. The idea has some merit. But… reassure me, dear fellow, that I have not steered you too far from your former thoughts, and your theory is not built on the faulty assumption that our Sir Tristan, or whomever, spent all of his life being violently in love, and never being annoyed with his servants, or having indigestion, or occasionally enjoying an evening with friends.” Darcy did not respond quickly enough, so Byron languished in his chair and said, “Take it from a poet, my good man. Poetry is the expression of excited passion, yes, but there is no such thing as a life of naught but passion, any more than there is a continuous earthquake or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state?”

“It is like a year without a summer,” said Darcy.

“Yes, but not all years are like that. And even then, there is still spring and fall.”

There came a rattle at the door; Byron, really fearing it was Caroline Lamb again, escaped through the window. Darcy escaped to Pemberley the next day (though via the main door and a coach and four, than the library window and on all fours) and, almost in spite of his better judgment, picked up a copy of _Childe Harold_ to read on the long journey to Derbyshire. He enjoyed it more than he was really comfortable admitting, and, when he arrived home, began digging up half-thought out plans for a poor hospital, ones he had begun shortly after his father had died. It irritated Darcy to later realize this was in response to the conversation in the library, and irritated him yet further to realize that it was working. Plunging himself so deeply into a project, one that he found both complicated and unquestionably good, distracted him so much, he did not think of Elizabeth Fitzwilliam more than once or twice a week.

He attempted a poem or two without much success (he spent most of his time trying to find rhymes for difficult words) and gave up the effort entirely when he received a letter from Lord Byron. The letter was short, and its purpose mostly to show off a stanza for a poem that Byron admitted ‘ _as of yet has no beginning, except our talk in the library. But for a poet, a quatrain, even an incomplete one, can never be wasted, any more than ill-cut muslin for a lady. One can always make it into something else later. One hopes this may draw forth the poison and let our courtly lover live on, unharmed, though I cannot find it in me to distrust Shakespeare any more than Pope. One may distrust received wisdom, but never true genius. You may find it has the opposite effect of what you wish._ ’

Darcy found the effect to be mixed. The first time he read the stanza, he had the unpleasant feeling of having been vivisected, his innermost ugliness exposed; but forever thereafter he drew from it a strange comfort, like pressing at an old bruise. The blow was past; the pain daily fading. Occasionally he would bump up against something _—_ one of Elizabeth's letters to Georgiana, or one of Richard’s to him; a dinner party where she and Richard communicated half in look and inside jokes, all the marks of a well-developed partnership; a friend mentioning the Fitzwilliams as an enviously happy couple _—_ and the bruise would bloom anew, violent blues and purples, instead of the fading yellow of an old hurt healing. Then, like some ancient Roman convinced the repitition of a magic spell could heal all ills, he would recite in his head:

_… and yet thou lov’st me not,_

_And never wilt! Love dwells not in our will._

_Nor can I blame thee, though it be my lot_

_To strongly, wrongly, vainly love thee still._


	8. The Grim and Inexplicable Courtship of Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Elliot

_Spring, 1811._

Colonel Fitzwilliam arrived late at Almack’s—late enough to think he might be denied entry—and was relieved to see Marjorie moving immediately to him, her train of white crepe floating elegantly behind her like a ship in full spread of sail. “Richard,” she said, with gentle reproof. “We really quite despaired of you. What kept you?”

“Regimental business, I’m afraid.” He bowed over her outstretched hand, and privately thought that his eldest brother’s marriage to Lady Marjorie Spencer had not only been the best thing Julian had ever done for himself, but quite the best contribution he could have ever made to the Fitzwilliam family. There was no social ill she had not learnt to smooth over; even now she was nodding and smiling to a disapproving Countess Lieven, and towing Colonel Fitzwilliam into the ballroom. “Captain Thompson kept me longer than expected after dinner; he has been offered the purchase of a major’s commission in the South Essex— very good luck for him, but bad for me! He had the command of my light company.”

“Lawrence is here. Perhaps you can persuade him to lose the gazette?”

“Ha! Very kind of you, but I couldn't serve Thompson such an underhanded turn. But I should like to know if Lawrence knows of any captain ready to sail to Spain within the week, to take charge of the light company; the lieutenant with them has been only a year in his post, and needs two more before I can promote him.”

Marjorie made sympathetic noises, but her attention was clearly engaged elsewhere. The quadrille was drawing to a close and Colonel Fitzwilliam at first suspected she wished him to dance with someone in particular. He tried to remember if his father was sponsoring any particular bill, or seeking any new potential ally, and, recalling nothing pressing, tried to remember which of Marjorie’s friends were newly in town.

“My dear brother,” said Marjorie, “did you know Sir Walter Elliot is in town with his eldest two daughters?”

“I did not.” He searched his memory, and dragged up a faint recollection of Marjorie and Mary’s friend, the elegant, dark-eyed second daughter. Anne?

“I should be very pleased to dance with Miss Anne,” he offered.

“You shall have to content yourself with her,” said Marjorie, quite big with news, “as Cousin Darcy has asked her sister, Miss Elliot, for the next.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam was a little surprised by this. “Darcy’s here? I am surprised to hear it. Wasn’t he here just yesterday?”

“Yes,” said Marjorie, raising her eyebrows. “Where he made the acquaintance of Miss Elliot.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam could not quite understand what she was insinuating. Was Miss Elliot trying to secure Darcy? Heaven knew they had seen it often enough— and seen, far oftener, Darcy grousing about it during supper at home or at Matlock House.

But this was quite wrong; Marjorie said, significantly, “Darcy arrived only a little before you did. He asked Miss Elliot to dance as soon as he arrived.”

“ _Cousin Darcy."_

“Yes, Cousin Darcy— who never dances with anyone outside of his party, if he can help it, and who never comes to Almack’s twice in the same week— danced with someone he met yesterday. Here at Almack’s.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam was extremely surprised and turned to look at the dancers in the set. He saw the back of Darcy’s head, and then glanced across the circle that was now forming to see a woman with Anne Elliot’s coloring and some similarities of countenance. Miss Elliot seemed tailor-made for the current standard of beauty. She was tall and well-formed, her Junoesque figure very well set-off by the high waistline and low necklines fashion demanded. Her complexion was much fairer and more delicate, than her sister’s— almost painfully pale— and striking against her dark hair and eyes.

Marjorie said, in a tone that meant she was avoiding saying something unpleasant, “And you see Miss Elliot there, in the blush colored satin and figured crepe.”

“She is very handsome,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “The handsomest girl in the room, probably.”

Marjorie smiled, but it was out of discomfort rather than amusement. Colonel Fitzwilliam had often noticed that when women felt pressured to be polite in a situation where they were clearly uncomfortable, their smiles would be wider and linger longer.

“Present company excluded?” he ventured, unsure what had made Marjorie uncomfortable.

She patted his arm with her fan and said, “Now, now, you must not think I was fishing for a compliment. She is very handsome. I suppose that is all men see when they first look at a woman.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam could have given her a cruder answer, and had he been dining (or rather, drinking) at the barracks instead of at the home of Captain Thompson’s parents, he likely would have. He managed to contain himself to a polite cough.

“You have relieved my mind somewhat.”

“You do not like Miss Elliot?”

Marjorie opened her fan and studied the pastoral scene painted upon it. “I do not _dis_ like her. I prefer Miss Anne. I will not confess how many years younger she was than I am, but I made rather a pet of Miss Anne at school, and I am still very fond of her. And older siblings are not always their best selves before their younger siblings. I did not always love my elder brother Lord Althorpe as I do now... and even so, I prefer to pass an evening with Lawrence.”

“Ah,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “We all pass through some storms of adolescence, and hopefully grow out of them. I'm sure I was unbearable to my sisters before we all grew up.”

“They all told me _Stornoway_ was. _You_ were not, except for the brief period where you thought it a very good joke to catch frogs and stick them in their apron pockets when they weren't looking— but that was early childhood rather than adolescence, if I remember rightly.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam winced. “I hope we might pass that off as merely a premonition of my future career. When in the very distant future I am made a general please tell everyone that even as a child I was determined to pursue the Frogs.”

Marjorie smiled. “I certainly shall. Well, the dance is ending soon; shall we go over to the Elliots, and see if I am wrong about Miss Elliot?”

They were just greeting Sir Walter and Miss Anne Elliot when the dance ended and Sir Walter said, “And I may very soon introduce you to my eldest, Elizabeth. A very handsome girl, Elizabeth. You seldom see such fineness of complexion in such cold weather. The wind turns every other woman into a perfect fright— why look at Anne, the north wind has quite robbed her of her bloom!”

“I think Miss Anne is looking very well,” said Marjorie. Her hand was resting on Colonel Fitzwilliam’s arm; she squeezed slightly. “It is only the want of exercise, I am sure.”

“Speaking of which— would you dance the next with me, Miss Anne?” Colonel Fitzwilliam asked promptly.

Miss Anne looked her gratitude as she accepted; Colonel Fitzwilliam answered with a rueful smile, to try and express that she was not alone in having a father who disapproved of things their second born could not help.

Sir Walter seemed very surprised anyone should ask Anne to dance, especially since Elizabeth would be very soon available. He did not say as much aloud, but his glances between his two daughters expressed it very eloquently, as did his pomposity in announcing the return of Miss Elliot and Mr. Darcy.

Darcy looked like he usually did when he was in a ballroom: as if he had a bad toothache and the fate of the world relied upon his concealing it. Large crowds had always made Darcy unhappy and uneasy. Colonel Fitzwilliam offered him a reassuring smile, to congratulate him on surviving Almack’s twice in one week. Darcy missed this, as he turned and bowed to Miss Elliot with an expression of pained politeness. “I thank you for the reel, Miss Elliot.”

“The pleasure was mine, Mr. Darcy,” Miss Elliot said regally.

“Elizabeth,” said Sir Walter, importantly, “these are Mr. Darcy’s cousins, Lady Stornoway and Colonel Fitzwilliam.”

Miss Elizabeth Elliot unfurled her arm like Cleopatra rolling out of a carpet before the feet of Caesar. She oozed out a, “Lady Stornoway,” before turning to Colonel Fitzwilliam with less enthusiasm. “Colonel Fitzwilliam.” In two words she somehow managed to convey the sentence, ‘The son of an earl you might be, and so I will treat you respectfully; but as a second son living upon his pay and a couple of presents from his father, you are not worth my time.’

“Charmed,” lied Colonel Fitzwilliam.

“What a handsome couple you made,” said Sir Walter, very pleased. “It was a very welcome relief. There is something about Almacks, in the middle of the season, which causes all the perfect horrors of the world to descend upon it.”

“Is that so?” asked Lady Stornoway, politely, which unfortunately caused Sir Walter to expound upon this theme until the next dance began.

Colonel Fitzwilliam was very happy to escape with Miss Anne. They talked of music, and pretended they had no families.

 

***

 

To the bewilderment of Colonel Fitzwilliam, his elder brother and his sister-in-law, Darcy spent the rest of the evening grimly attending Miss Elliot. He did not appear to be enjoying himself any more than usual (i.e. not very much at all), nor could anyone tell what, if anything, he and Miss Elliot had done when they were not dancing aside from ‘listen to Sir Walter Expound on Unverifiable Theories of Beauty’ and ‘force very dull conversations about Foxhounds They Had Known.’

“Perhaps she improves upon acquaintance,” said Lady Stornoway, idly playing with her fan. “But I somehow doubt it.”

“She could be one of those women who just doesn’t get along with other women,” said Julian, smiling. “But what a fuss you make, my dear. Darcy dances twice with a girl and you immediately vet her for a cousin-in-law.”

“Darcy has never danced two nights in a row with anyone outside the family circle before,” objected Marjorie.

“Well, Miss Elliot is a very handsome girl,” said Julian.

“She has no conversation about anything other than herself,” objected Marjorie.

Trying to look like the man-of-the-world he clearly was not, Julian gave his younger brother a significant look and said, “I very much doubt Darcy wants to _talk_ with her, eh?”

“He certainly didn’t much try,” agreed Colonel Fitzwilliam.

When they left Almack's, Colonel Fitzwilliam was still feeling too puzzled to go immediately to bed and went to visit the only sister of his currently at home.  

“Up to a visit, Syllabub?” Colonel Fitzwilliam asked, easing open the door to Sybil’s room.

Sybil, miserably lying in bed, clutching a hot brick wrapped in flannel to her midsection, raised her head from the pillows. “Only if it is from you!”

Colonel Fitzwilliam had always made rather a pet of Sybil (for though he was closest to Honoria, their relationship had always been one of near equals), and Sybil had always responded to it with pleasure. She blossomed like a hothouse flower when whenever he was home on leave, as she was otherwise left on her own. Julian and Arabella had always been the favorites of their parents (and Honoria and Colonel Fitzwilliam the definite un-favorites), which took up what parental concern could be spared from politics. Sybil, with her dreamy disposition and love of travel and books, had very little in common with her sisters. Marjorie was sweet to her, and helpful with all the little intricacies of _ton_ life that had to be explained, but they were friendly rather than friends. Their goals in life were too different to permit greater intimacy. Sybil had no desire for a society career, and that had been Marjorie’s aim from birth.  

“Come to tell me more about Spain?” Sybil asked, propping herself up and reaching for her teacup. “I should like to hear more, if you are agreeable. Marjorie brought me a book of engravings of famous Spanish cathedrals and I have been looking at it when my cramps aren't too terrible.”

“I never know how women can bear to have a monthly complaint like this,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, pulling a chair up to her bedside.

“We haven't much choice,” said Sybil, with a laugh. “And not everyone gets laid low for a half-a-week every month like I do. Honoria never does. Mama used to say this was the Lord’s way of making me a very dutiful wife for Mr. Omai, whoever he may be, for I would always be wishing to be pregnant, to avoid all this for a nine month. Could you ring for a servant actually? I have a terrible craving for cake.”

This accomplished, and the cake delivered, Colonel Fitzwilliam reported on what cathedrals he had seen (not very many, and most of them somehow damaged by shelling or raids), and said, “By the by, Darcy was rather odd tonight.”

“Really, how so?”

“He was looking rather pained....”

Sybil blinked at him. “At Almack’s? And... that is odd? That is what he always does at Almack’s.”

“No, I mean— he was doing it while I think interested in someone.”

Sybil gasped and sat up, delighted. “Cousin Darcy, _interested_ in someone! Oh how delightful! I can just see him, struggling not to let his admiration show at all, forcing himself to keep conversation light and trivial, and his manner the same as it always is, so as not to raise expectations.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam considered this, and thought it accorded well with his understanding of his cousin. “Then, too,” he mused aloud, “Darcy would... I mean, he is so very private, he would not like anyone to know his true feelings. Despite that, he still seemed very taken with Miss Elliot. At least, he acts differently towards her than any other woman he’s ever met. He hangs about her as protectively as if she were Georgiana.”

Sybil sighed and fell back into her pillows. “How romantic, meeting at Almack’s! Just like Julian and Marjorie. Who is this Miss Elliot? Did you like her?”

“I think, perhaps,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, trying to be generous, “she makes a bad first impression. Like Darcy used to do; or at least, did at Eton.”

 

***

 

Miss Elliot did not make a bad first impression on everyone, as it turned out; Lady Catherine liked her.

“I knew there was a reason I disliked her,” said Marjorie, viciously hacking shorter some lilies.

Sybil, who was well enough to leave her room, but not yet to leave the house, passed Majrorie some greenery. “Lady Catherine very often says Darcy is her favorite nephew.”

“What a ghastly basis of affection, to have that as a chief similarity,” said Marjorie, with a shudder.

Colonel Fitzwilliam hid his smile behind his newspaper. “I hate to side with Julian,” he said, when he felt sure he wouldn’t laugh, “but you are treating this rather too seriously, Marjorie. Darcy and Miss Elliot have known each other a week. One cannot build a marriage off of several dances and two dinner parties. Not one for Darcy, any road; you know him. He never acts impulsively.”

Marjorie began sticking lilies and greenery into a tall vase, looking sour. “I like to stop calamities before they occur.”

“Pleasing Lady Catherine is a calamity?” asked Sybil.

“A dreadful one,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, “from which Miss Elliot can never recover.”

A footman knocked on the door and announced that Miss Elliot and Miss Anne Elliot had come to call.

Marjorie thrust the vase at the footman and impatiently unpinning her apron. “If only _Anne_ had come by herself— oh, well. Take this to the front hall, and then ask the Elliots to come up.”

Sybil was pleased. “I should like to meet Miss Elliot,” she whispered to Richard. “I should particularly like to see her up close, for all everyone can agree upon is that she is very beautiful.”

“She is,” he agreed, easily.

“I think I shall like her.”

She didn’t.

Miss Elliot had an odd manner with the Fitzwilliams, that combined an extreme pride in her own circumstances and beauty, and a flattering obsequiousness for members of the family she knew to have been set above the gentry and affixed so firmly in the aristocracy. To be looked upon with pity for her beauty (which was sadly not much), but flattered for her birth startled Sybil extremely. Miss Elliot spent the rest of the visit discussing various remedies to improve Sybil’s complexion, or naturally turn her mouse brown hair into something more pleasing. Colonel Fitzwilliam tried to enter into this conversation and steer it where he could, but Miss Elliot did not think him handsome enough or important enough to flatter, and tended to ignore him when she was not condescending to him with a honeyed, “Oh you men! You never know a thing about caring for your own complexions.”

Then they were gone, Sybil said, after a moment’s thought, “I hope you and Julian are right, Richard. I am not sure when I have met someone I have liked less.”

“Thank you,” said Marjorie, much gratified.

 

***

 

At a party thrown by the Palmers, some three weeks later, Miss Crawford remarked, “So tell me, dear colonel— is the rumor about your Cousin Darcy true?

He had enough time to ask only “What rumor?” before the dance seperated them, which he was sure was deliberate. Mary loved to appear more interesting by means of artful pauses and half-completed innuendos, which was alternately one of the most amusing and most annoying aspects of her character.

“That your cousin Darcy has fallen head over heels with a Miss Elliot,” she replied.

“What?”

“You can be excused for not knowing,” said Miss Crawford, and when the dance reunited them again, continued, “as you have been this past fortnight away from London. Have good shooting?”

“Decent enough to know my light company will be in good hands with Captain Wyndham.” he replied. They separated and Colonel Fitzwilliam spotted Darcy, once again with Miss Elliot. ‘It _has_ been nearly a month,’ he thought uncertainly, ‘since Darcy has been showing interest in Miss Elliot; and longer than that since he and I really had a chat.’

“But the _rumor_ , dear colonel,” Miss Crawford begged. “Has stoic, taciturn Mr. Darcy lost heart and mind?”

“I have been a fortnight from London,” he replied, “and am afraid to say that I cannot answer.”

The dance fortunately ended then; Miss Crawford rested her gloved hand on his sleeve, and said, interestedly, “Now, which one is Miss Elliot?”

Colonel Fitzwiliam scanned the crowd. “To your right, in the pomona green satin.”

Miss Elliot was complaining, loudly, about some other dancer stepping on the hem of her gown, to a resigned Miss Anne Elliot. Darcy had been banished to the drinks table; by the time he had returned, Miss Elliot had moved onto complaints that no one at the Palmers knew how to dance.

“Her?” Miss Crawford asked, skeptically.

“Her,” Colonel Fitzwilliam confirmed.

Mary stared. After a moment, she said, “They are both proud and above the rest of the company. They may be a match.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam felt an unpleasant jolt of surprise at this idea. “What rot you talk,” he said, uneasily.

 

***

 

Later that evening, Colonel Fitzwilliam was struggling to explain the delicate system of polite quarrels over supply that passed for Anglo-Spanish diplomacy to his elder brother when the dance ended, and he noticed Darcy once more leading Miss Elliot back to her father.

“I say,” Julian remarked, startled, “Darcy dancing with the Elliot girl again? He’ll raise expectations at this rate. He’s usually more cautious.”

Sybil’s partner returned them to her corner, bowed, and vanished. Sybil asked, “What are you talking of?”

“Darcy,” said Julian.

“With whom?”

“Miss Elliot.”

“Her?” asked Sybil, quite bewildered.

“Her,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam.

They took a moment to observe Miss Elliot sneering at a footman.

“Are you really quite certain about Cousin Darcy’s preference?” asked Sybil.

“It must be some sort of infatuation,” said Julian. “Miss Elliot is very handsome.” This was the feeble and tired plea of all the Fitzwilliams, against their collective better judgments.

“I suppose,” said Sybil, doubtfully, “but her expresion is so proud I think it quite ruins the regularity of her features. Though Darcy is very proud, in his way, so perhaps he likes to see someone sharing his feelings.” She glumly followed party line with a concluding: “I suppose he must very much admire her beauty.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam vaguely agreed to this, but he was privately baffled. He found it difficult to understand how someone, let alone someone with whom he shared so many other tastes, could completely lose his head over an Elizabeth Elliot. Colonel Fitzwilliam’s preference had always been for witty women, who owed their prettiness not to any involuntarily physiognomic display (so often more reflective of family than the individual), but to a lively manner or a resting expression of playfulness or good humor. A classical beauty rarely moved him, but a laughing glance and a good quip always drew his eye. And even in the grosser realms of attraction, a light and pleasing figure had been his preference over a voluptuous one. Though her beauty could not be denied, Elizabeth Elliot did not fit his notion of an attractive woman in the least.

Though, he thought, he should not compare their preferences. Darcy had never expressed any interest in men, which cut out a significant portion of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s romantic experience and emotional life. Darcy had always been particular, more inclined towards criticism than appreciation of imperfection. Perhaps Miss Elliot really did fit Darcy’s no doubt exacting notions of beauty.

The next day at breakfast, when the Earl had gone off to write his letters, Colonel Fitzwilliam mentioned as much to Sybil, Julian, and Marjorie. Marjorie agreed it seemed the likeliest explanation— but she expressed her shock that _Darcy_ , severe, self-contained, proper cousin Darcy, should be so moved by beauty that he ignored all the deficits of Miss Elliot’s character, and the deficiencies of her conversation to pursue her.

“A man can be easily led astray by a pretty face; there is nothing more common,” opined Julian.

Marjorie looked skeptical. “But as far astray as this, my dear? Your Cousin Darcy is a reading man, a thinking man; he attends to all estate business himself. He always has some scheme of improvement, or some innovation to test. He knows what will be expected of the future mistress of Pemberley, and knows it is more than what is commonly demanded of a mistress of a large estate.”

“Oh yes, but you know— clever men make stupid matches all the time. Attraction dulls the intellect. I am sure I heard that somewhere.”

“I was not denying _that,_  my dear, I mean only that I am... surprised that Darcy would let his intellect be this dulled. Darcy is always alive to his responsibilities. And he so _deliberates_ over everything he does. I cannot see him falling unthinkingly into an infatuation. Even if he had, he would take care to guard himself, would he not? He would be alive to every evil of an unequal match, I am sure.”

“He cannot be in love with her?” asked Sybil, rather horrified.

None of them had ever seen Darcy in love before, which complicated matters. Though they all knew love manifested itself differently in everyone, no one could recall it manifesting itself as “looking extremely grim while observing the object of one’s admiration,” “not saying a word to one’s beloved,” or “displaying all the worst aspects of one’s personality.”

“It could be a match,” said Julian, dubiously.

This was the idea they had all been avoiding.

Everyone at the table looked pained at the idea. They did not want to believe their cousin could have so horrible a soulmate.

Julian unhappily made his case. “Sir Walter may be a stupid man, but he is respectable, and they are related to the Dalrymples. A baronet for a father and a viscountess as a cousin might be the equal of a gentleman for a father and an earl for an uncle.”

“Socially, it is close on a match,” Marjorie admitted, “but personally? What can the two of them have to talk about? Do they share any interests or hobbies? I cannot imagine their tastes are similar in anything. Richard, I wish you would find out for me.”

He attempted to, by asking Miss Elliot to dance the next time he was at Almack’s, but she plainly did not care for his company. She scarcely opened her lips but to criticize another dancer, or the orchestra, or the admittedly lackluster refreshments. Any attempt at a personal question was heartily rebuffed. Her initial opinion of him had not altered. A younger son, her manner implied, especially one in a _profession_ , without _private fortune_ , was not worth her time. Colonel Fitzwilliam’s own pride was a little piqued at that. A younger son he might be, but the younger son of an Earl was used to some deference, and the rigid structure of military society, and his high position within it, meant he was rarely met with deliberate rudeness.

He debated whether or not to tell Darcy of his experience. If Miss Elliot _was_ Darcy’s soulmate, then Colonel Fitzwilliam would do nobody any favors by objecting to her now. However, if they were not a match, and he could prevent an unhappy alliance....

“They cannot be a match,” opined the Earl, over the after-dinner port, the next day. “They do not even like each other. I liked your mother as soon as we were introduced. Stornoway, you said you knew Marjorie was your soulmate after you'd danced with her once at Almack's, did you not?”

“I did, sir,” he agreed.

Colonel Fitzwilliam felt a vague stir of discontentment. It had taken him a full campaign in India for him to fall head over heels for Captain Bénet Pascal, assistant surgeon for the Coldstream Guards. But perhaps that was a sign he ought not to have ignored. That had not turned out to be a true match after all.

“Colonel Fitzwilliam,” said the Earl, startling Colonel Fitzwilliam considerably, “talk to Darcy, will you?”

“Yes, sir,” he replied, just checking the impulse to salute.

 

***

 

Since meeting Miss Elliot, Darcy seemed to have relatively little time for him; Colonel Fitzwilliam only saw his cousin in passing, with the exception of his usual Wednesday morning call, to compare Georgiana’s dutiful, weekly letters. These letters revealed very little but the improvement of her penmanship.

“She is at least mentioning the same few girls every week,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “I think she is making friends. She is not unhappy, at least.”

“No,” Darcy said, broodingly.

“Are you?” Then, fearing he had gone too far, he added, smilingly, “With her school.”

“No,” he said, absently, before lapsing into silence.

The clock on the mantle was damnably loud. Colonel Fitzwilliam said, “I, ah... I noticed that you seem quite taken with Miss Elizabeth Elliot.”

Darcy’s looked up, and said, a little troubled, “What do you think of her?”

“She’s very handsome,” rose automatically to his lips.

“She is,” said Darcy, looking a little aggrieved, “and well-bred, well-educated, well-dressed....”

“Well....”

“Well what?”

Colonel Fitzwilliam cleared his throat and wondered if Darcy was so aggrieved because he knew the rest of the family did not approve of his choice. Or... his potential choice? He did not speak as a man convinced. “She is... very well! That is— Darcy, I would never presume to... impose myself on you, or to prise from you a confidence you do not wish to give, but... if ever you would like to talk about Miss Elliot... your feelings for her... your... expectations....”

Darcy looked annoyed and irritable. “I shall call upon you first, if ever I do. But at present I have little I wish to discuss that touches upon Miss Elliot.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam did not know what to make of this, and said, gently, “Darcy, you know your own business best, of course. But do not think I would ever disapprove, or be made unhappy by that which makes _you_ happy.”

Darcy made a noncommittal noise, abruptly stood, and went to stare out the window.

“There’s a garden party tomorrow week,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, helpfully. “It was all Marjorie could persuade my father to do, to welcome Honoria and Miss Duncan to London for the season. I can ask Marjorie to invite the Elliots for you, if you wish to see them... in a less formal setting. If that is what you require at present.”

“I should be most grateful,” said Darcy, stiffly.

 

***

 

Colonel Fitzwilliam staggered backwards with dramatic cries of “Thus die I,” lifted from his turn as Bottom the Weaver in a theatrical meant to enliven a very long siege in Spain. “Thus,” he said, managing to catch his oldest nephew Spencer’s wooden sword and direct it, to avoid being impaled for real. “Thus!”  He feigned being stabbed. “Thus!” This time he fell to the ground, before one of the tables laden with tea things. “Now I am dead!”

Spencer laughed and tried to poke him with the sword. Colonel Fitzwilliam maintained his grip on it. His nephew was still in the unfortunate stage of childhood where the pain of others was not quite understood. “Now I am fled! My soul is in the sky! Tongue lose thy light, moon take thy flight! Now, die, die, die, die, die.” He flipped over, tucking the sword into his armpit, and amused Spencer and Julia into shrieks of laughter by crawling dramatically toward to the terrace with every “die.”

He collapsed before the table Lawrence was sitting at, with a final dying gurgle.

“Spencer killed Uncle Richard!” Julia announced, delighted.

Lawrence glanced down. “Tough luck, old boy.”

“Why did the cavalry not come?” lamented Colonel Fitzwilliam, to the grass. “The whole regiment of foot was slaughtered.”

“The cavalry only just this moment got their tea,” said Lawrence. “Spencer, Julia, run off to your Mama on the other end of the terrace, she’s still serving cake.”

Cake beat triumphing over the demise of one’s enemy any day; the children ran off at once, still shrieking. Colonel Fitzwilliam raised his head and watched them streak across the lawn towards the terrace, where Marjorie was doing the honors of the tea table, assisted by Honoria and Miss Duncan, and haunted by Miss Elliot. Colonel Fitzwilliam decided his own tea could wait, tossed the sword aside, and rolled over to lay on his back. A brief, unsettling sense memory of Spain rose up; of wrapping himself up in his blanket and falling, exhausted, to the ground, sleeping rough like every man under his command, his nights unrestful, since he always had an ear out for the approaching enemy, following their retreat. But then he put his hand out and skimmed his palm over the fresh verdure of the lawn, so different from the dust of the Spanish roads, and relaxed. The grass was springy and cool beneath him, and he thought instead of lazy summers spent at Pemberley or Matlock.

“You missed your calling,” said Lawrence, sipping his tea. “Ought to have taken to the stage, old boy.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam folded his arms behind his head and said, in tones of mock severity, “See, this is why all infantrymen hate the cavalry. Here I am, dying of multiple stab wounds and what do you do? Sip tea and eat cake, calm as you please.”

“I cannot eat cake in an agitated manner,” objected Lawrence. “And anyhow, I don't deserve a scold when I am _planning to_ ride to the rescue. I've been invited to what seems to be rather a good party at Lord Pumphery’s this evening. I'll carry you off so you don't have to sit through another family dinner. Marjorie told me of last night’s uh... warm welcome for Nora and Dora.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam plucked a blade of grass and stuck it in the corner of his mouth, as he had done as a child, fighting the impulse to say he really couldn’t stand hearing his sister and her partner referred to like the leads of a children’s puppet show. His family had never been keen on nicknames, a fact for which he was profoundly grateful. He had avoided the fate of most Richards, who were sooner or later just called ‘Dick.’

“Come now,” said Lawrence, wheedingly. “Give your excuses.”

He made a non-committal noise.

There was a polite chink of porcelain on porcelain. “Captain Pascal’s still in Spain, old boy. Coldstream Guard’s too important to get home leave.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam stared up at the clouds, trying to find patterns.

“My dear chap,” said Lawrence, softly, “don’t let one set-back throw you off the idea of romance forever. So he ended up not being your soulmate. My dear, how long’s it been? You were made a lieutenant-colonel back in what, ‘09?”

“Yes. But we wrote a bit last year, after Colonel Murphy took that howitzer shell to the head and I was abruptly promoted.”

“Did it...?”

“Oh, we were too cruel to each other in person to really be appeased by letter,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, pulling the blade of grass out of his mouth and tossing it aside. “We both knew it was a final break at the time. We only shored it up more politely.”

“My dear, then why this reluctance to come with me?”

“It’s... complicated,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, reluctantly. He was not fond of Lord Pumphrey’s parties. As Captain Pascal had trenchantly put it, ‘at the end of one of Pumphrey’s evening parties, one is apt to remove everything but the cloth about one’s wrist.’ Colonel Fitzwilliam was too sentimental to find any real fulfillment in such company, but he did not like to admit to it except with a vague, “Some part of me still thinks I do have a soulmate out there, somewhere.”

“I know,” said Lawrence, kindly, “and I don’t mean to say that you will never find your soulmate. Nor that you should just form a liaison with anyone who’s interested— just that you can’t find your soulmate staying at home. Come to Lord Pumphery’s.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam snorted. “I’d be more likely to find my soulmate at my Aunt Catherine’s than at Lord Pumphery’s.”

“Ouch. I cannot imagine what sorts of people Lady Catherine gathers about her at Rosings. But really, old boy, no need to be _quite_ so censorious. Lord Pumphery’s moved onto a different John. Captain John Buxton. Very decent sort of chap, an exploring officer for Sir Arthur, on the Peninsula.” Then, coaxingly, “ _And_ you will not have to go to Almack’s, and see the Elliots twice in one day.”

“I like Miss Anne,” objected Colonel Fitzwilliam, but the sudden relief he felt, in not having to force conversation, or be polite to Miss Elliot, was so great, it decided his course.

“ _That_ makes sense. She is very nearly your type. What _doesn’t_ make sense is your cousin Darcy’s going after Miss Elliot. Really, what’s the appeal?”

“They are social equals,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, family loyalty struggling with personal exasperation. “Her manners are... those of the fashionable world? Her family is... well, Miss Anne is an elegant little thing. Musical.”

“I don't think men marry women because their sisters knew how to sing in Italian.”

“Her family’s in the Baronetage?”

Lawrence looked skeptical. “ _Yours_ is in Debrett’s.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam at last admitted defeat. “I should dearly love to explain it, but I find I cannot. The nearest parallel I can think of was when Lord Hervey went after Captain Durkin this past February. Really a terrible choice all around, but they wanted each other badly enough that it seemed like a good idea.”

“Since when has your cousin been overmastered by lust?” cried Lawrence.

“Never, so he was probably overdue for it.”

“But _Miss Elliot_ ,” pressed Lawrence. “She’s so....”

Colonel Fitzwilliam scratched his chin. “Yes.”

Lawrence looked, bewildered, over at Miss Elliot. “I will never understand the breeders. Can I persuade you to a strategic withdrawal to Lord Pumphrey’s?”

“I have learnt from Sir Arthur’s example, during my time on the Peninsula; the mark of a great general is to know when to retreat and to have the courage to do it. Let's go."

 

***

 

Colonel Fitzwilliam found himself thinking again of the Darcy-Elliot problem at Lord Pumphrey’s, because his dining partner was one of Darcy’s neighbors in Derbyshire, a Mr. Totley of Brookside Manor. They had neither of them realized they moved in the same circles when in London, and were all too aware of the society in which they usually met. They fell back on politely asking after mutual acquaintances, which probably would have carried them in any other situation, but felt damned awkward at a dinner party at Lord Pumphrey’s.

“I ah, I saw your cousin Darcy at the Palmers, the other week,” said Mr. Totley, pretending to be really absorbed in the white Douro wine being served with the turbot.

“He, ah, he mentioned being there.”

“Yes. I, ah.” He downed half his glass. “I hope nothing has befallen Miss Darcy.”

“Good God, no! Why, what did he—”

“Mr. Darcy was just so... unlike himself,” said Mr. Totley, motioning to a footman for a refill, “or unlike the way he is at Pemberley, that I could only conclude that something was very wrong. That is—” he knit his brows together, concerned “—I have known Darcy since we were both still in petticoats. I could never call him _lively,_  or particularly talkative, but he scarcely opened his mouth the whole dinner and when he did, it was to find fault with something. He ignored his dinner companions the entire meal— something I have never seen him do— and I don't think he had one cheerful look for anybody, even Lady Jersey. It was as if he came to a dinner specifically to disapprove of it, and to make everyone uncomfortable. That is not the master of Pembrely.”

“No,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam with a sigh.

“I had really thought to find him almost animated; my elder sister heard reports he was much enamored with a Miss Elliot.”

“He might have been pining,” Colonel Fitzwilliam suggested.

Mr. Totley looked pained, “But, colonel, he was sitting right next to Miss Elliot.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam struggled to find some explanation. “Perhaps they quarreled? Or she was trying to make him jealous by devoting himself to her other dinner partner?”

“I don't think so,” he said, “for they were perfectly civil to each other going into dinner, and were each others’ partners at whist. But... really I don't understand it. They don't act as if they are a match.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam admitted, “It puzzles my family as much as it puzzles you. It's almost as if they do not like each other. But if that is the case, why do they seek each other out like this? Why do they spend so much time together?”

Lawrence overheard this and added, “It’s a grim and inexplicable courtship. If Darcy wasn't rich as a lord, and known to hate cards, I would think he was in horrible debt and needed her dowry.”

Mr. Totley motioned to the footman for another refill. He was beginning to relax.

“You have an idea?” Lawrence asked, hopefully. “Richard here says Darcy’s gone mad with lust but that, as Marjorie told me, is actually his elder brother Stonroway’s theory.”

“I honestly can't explain it,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, “so I just parrot whatever someone has told me most recently.”

“Do you think,” asked Mr. Totley, after a minute, “that Mr. Darcy might be one of us? His wrist says Elliot, perhaps, and he cannot admit he might like a man? It's very common. I feel like half the men I meet at these sorts of things has a story about trying to desperately make things work with a Miss Lawrence instead of a Lawrence, if you will pardon me for using you as an example, Major Spencer.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam felt singled out, but was fortunately two glasses of wine away from getting disgruntled and making a series of pointed comments that would only make him angry and make everyone else irritable. He kept his temper and said, “I would doubt it. If it was merely ‘Elliot,’ why would he not pursue Miss Elliot’s younger sister, Miss Anne? She has all of Miss Elliot’s advantages in terms of birth, breeding, and education, but her mind is better informed and her manner is much sweeter— and she and Darcy actually have things in common.”

“I don't think his wrist says ‘Elliot,’” said Lawrence, thoughtfully, “but I think Totley here is onto something. I mean, think of Miss Elliot. She is everything society tells us a man ought to desire, in terms of beauty and figure.”

Mr. Totley nodded. “Mr. Darcy has always been alive to his responsibilities and the expectations placed upon him— he might... but his father was so understanding, his influence so unshakable, and his fortune is so large, I do not know why he would not be open about his preferences. In Derbyshire we are quite liberal. Almost as much as Scotland.”

“Oh my dear man,” said Lawrence, shaking his head. “You didn't hear how the poor colonel’s family reacted to _his_ mark? Fainting, hysterics, tours of Harley Street to see every physician there— poor Richard was given his first pair of colors and sent off to India at the end of it!”

Mr. Totley looked at Colonel Fitzwilliam with alarm and pity. “Why no, I hadn't— I just assumed you were given a pair of colors because you were a second son.”

“Lawrence likes drama and sees it in everything,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, trying to laugh off his discomfort. “I probably would have ended up in the army one way or another. Can you see me as a clergyman or a lawyer?”

They passed onto more indifferent subjects after that and Captain Buxton, as part of the after dinner entertainment, appeared in the guise of a flamenco dancer and entertained the company rather well, though not well enough for Colonel Fitzwilliam to forget this theory.

He went to Honoria’s room as soon as he was home and knocked on the door. “Honoria? Do you have a minute? Tell me to go to the devil if not.”

Honoria opened the door, wearing an emphatically masculine banyan and looking amused. “Never, Richard. Come on in. Dora’s still with her sister-in-law. I could use the company— and, selfish as it is, I missed you at dinner. Where were you?”

“Lord Pumphrey’s.”

Honoria shut the door after him and raised her eyebrows. “ _Well_. It’s a wonder you came home at all this evening.”

“You always think me more adventurous than I really am.”

“Pardon me, which one of us is in the Army?”

“Which one of us spends their life obeying orders, you mean?”

Honoria had been busy mixing scotch and sodas, and shoved one in his hand. “Fine, fine, let’s have an army grouse. Marjorie did her best today, bless her, but God, what a dreary party.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam took his usual chair by the fire. “What did you think of Miss Elliot?”

“Nothing good,” she replied frankly. Honoria propped her carpet-slippered feet up on an ottoman. “When Sybil wrote me saying Darcy was courting someone, I didn't know what to expect, but it certainly wasn't _her._ What an unpleasant woman! If a sneer took human form, it would be Miss Elliot.”

“That’s... sadly accurate.”

Honoria took a sip of her drink and grimaced. “To steal Lawrence’s line, I don’t understand the breeders.” When he did not immediately respond, Honoria said, “What’s wrong, Richard? Usually you try to explain things.”

“I... am not sure I can,” he said. “Heard a theory at Pumphrey’s that rather threw me— Honoria, you don’t think Darcy has the family trouble, do you?”

“What?” she asked, a little blankly.

“His mark’s ambiguous, I mean,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “And he’s pursing Miss Elliot because she’s what he’s been told he ought to like.”

“Darcy, one of us?” Honoria looked startled. “I really doubt it, Richard. There would have been a rumor. Or Darcy would have mentioned it to the two of us, or tried to come with us to parties or _something._ ”

“Would he?” asked Colonel Fitzwilliam. “And remember, Uncle George was tremendously decent. There would be no scandal because Uncle George would say it wasn’t one— like he did for me, and for you.”

“True,” said Honoria. “Too bad the other adults never listened to him. Oh, I see what you’re getting at. Uncle George would have kept from mentioning it to Mama and Papa and Aunt Catherine because of their medieval notions of proper soulmates. And Darcy’s so reserved. He might never say anything, if he was embarrassed enough.”

“That,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, “and he never knew about my mark. Outside of you all and the adults, no one else in the family knows. It upset Mama too much.”

“He ought to know about me, at least,” said Honoria. “I haven’t your fear of upsetting people. And though Aunt Catherine tries to, it’s rather difficult explaining away Dora. But I’ve got a better eye for this sort of thing than you. I’ll watch him at tomorrow’s ball.”

 

***

 

“No,” said Honoria, disappointingly early in the evening.

Despite himself, Colonel Fitzwilliam felt a little downcast at this news. Not only would it have made the world once again comprehensible, but it would have meant another ally in the family. “You really think there’s no chance at all?”

“I suppose there’s always a chance,” said Honoria, dubiously, “but....”

Miss Crawford came over to them and raised an eyebrow. “I suppose you are talking about Darcy again?”

“What makes you say that?” asked Honoria.

“Because you both looked pained,” said Miss Crawford, blithely. “I have a new theory. Would you care to hear it?”

“It’s probably better than Richard’s,” said Honoria, grinning. “He thought Darcy was pursuing Miss Elliot because he’s _one of us,_ and Miss Elliot’s the condescending embodiment of all poor Darcy has been told he ought to want by society.”

“Here’s my theory," said Miss Crawford. "His mark is some long dead person of great importance. Hence why he’s so dreadfully fastidious. He will not lower himself to marry someone not his soulmate unless that woman fits his very exacting ideal.”

“An ideal that completely leaves out personality,” said Honoria.

“She may be proud and disagreeable, but so is your cousin Darcy,” said Miss Crawford, dryly. “She might be his ideal.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam protested this, but Miss Crawford interrupted, “Do you want to know how he behaves to the Elliots? Abysmally. Anne— _Anne Elliot —_ was annoyed enough to comment she did not understand how you and Mr. Darcy could possibly be of the same family.”

“Darcy has never had to make himself agreeable to strangers,” protested Colonel Fitzwilliam. “They all fall over themselves to be agreeable to him. I, on the other hand, have had to make myself agreeable to murderously hostile natives of the countries in which my regiment has been stationed.”

“Sir Walter,” continued on Miss Crawford, implacably, “actually spoke to Anne about it.” Neither Honoria nor Colonel Fitzwilliam appreciated the enormity of this, so Miss Crawford gesticulated wildly with her fan, exclaiming, “For heaven’s sake, he scarcely notices Anne! When she was at school with us, he actually forgot to fetch her during the Christmas holiday once! Lady Russell had to come and get her, since Sir Walter could not bother to recall we closed a day earlier than all other seminaries. He almost never speaks with her. But he did about Mr. Darcy!”

“What did he say?”

“That Mr. Darcy was uncommonly puffed up for a man without a title. Who was he to be so condescending when he was a mere Mr? But, as he was one of the only passably good looking men in London, at present, Sir Walter eventually concluded that such a man had a right to be a little proud. _A little_.”

Honoria sighed. “I suppose Miss Elliot is too pleased with herself to turn away any admirer?”

Miss Crawford pointed her fan at Honoria in acknowledgement. “You have hit the center of the target! But do not despair, my dear— Miss Anne believes that Miss Elliot has no interest in marrying Darcy. He is not a baronet, and therefore he cannot be a proper match.”

Honoria and Colonel Fitzwilliam exchanged thoughtful looks.

“Could this be pointed out to Darcy?” Honoria asked.

“He won’t hear it,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam.

Marjorie, Sybil in tow, joined them in time to hear this. “Isn't it clear what is going on?”

The Fitzwilliam siblings looked at her in various attitudes of incredulity. Honoria said, “I think I speak for all of us when I say, ‘we haven't a goddamn clue.’”

“Darcy,” said Marjorie, “has given up finding his soulmate. He therefore gone for what he considers his ideal woman: well-born, well-connected, well-educated, proud, handsome, tall, and most importantly— if you will forgive my crudity, or rather, Stonroway’s—full-figured.”

This struck them all very forcefully.

“That is very close to my theory,” said Miss Crawford, very gratified. “I think his soulmate must be Cleopatra or Joan of Arc or something.”

“Quite possible,” said Marjorie, allowing this emendation of her theory.

“I cannot believe Julian actually made a valid point,” marveled Honoria.

“It happens sometimes,” Sybil said, in a feeble defense of their eldest brother.

“If Darcy has found his _beau ideale,"_  said Colonel Fitzwilliam, uncomfortably, “then....”

Honoria grimaced. “Then— and I cannot believe I am saying this— he really needs to have higher standards for himself.”

“But unlike Pygmalion,” continued on Marjorie, very pleased to find the four of them of such ready understanding, “Cousin Darcy has found that the statuesque ideal, which brought to life, is absolutely intolerable. It was probably a great struggle for him to admit he had no hope of actually marrying whoever he has on his wrist. To have to admit that so carefully reasoned a choice, an ideal carefully constructed over the course of years, is impossible for a man of his pride. _However._  He could still be saved. If done properly, he could still be persuaded to stop this grim, inexplicable courtship of Miss Elliot.”

The women all turned to look at Colonel Fitzwilliam.

“I cannot claim to know how to do it,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, in some exasperation. “And on what grounds am I to tell a grown man his choice of bride is unacceptable? ‘You ought to believe me, Darcy, the person I thought my soulmate turned out not to know me at all, and we parted so badly we are no longer on speaking terms?’”

Marjorie looked at him pityingly and said, “No, Richard; I merely need your help to bring out the bring out the big guns.”

“Canons?” supplied Colonel Fitzwilliam.

Correct military terminology was a matter of indifference to Marjorie; she agreed to it, but pressed on, “Richard, Georgiana is also _your_ ward, is she not?”

“She is.”

“I daresay,” said Marjorie, in tones of saccharine sweetness, “that dearest Georgiana would enjoy being temporarily taken out of school for a nice family dinner.”

 

***

 

Georgiana was delighted to be liberated from school, and was both embarrassed and pleased at how all her classmates crowded around to see her helped into a carriage by a young colonel of infantry. When Colonel Fitzwilliam turned to look over his shoulder at the front windows of the school, the girls all abruptly fled.

It was with both delight and terror that Georgiana went into the drawing room, smoothing down her first silk gown (a present from Darcy, of course), and looking about with shy eagerness.

“I have never dined at table with guests before,” she whispered, clinging onto Colonel Fitzwilliam’s arm. “I think I am ready, but I am very afraid I shall not have enough conversation.”

“Stick with Miss Anne,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “She is kind, and has a younger sister; I agreed to this only on the condition that Miss Anne Elliot would watch out for you and you should be spared as much unpleasantness as possible thereby.”

Georgiana put her hand about his ear and whispered, “Is she the one my brother likes? Cook told me Fitzwilliam had a _tendre_ for a Miss Elliot!”

He sighed. “We all rather wish that, but no.”

The Elliots were announced, Darcy in tow. It had not been difficult to get him to agree that Georgiana should be introduced to the Miss Elliots, but now he looked as if he profoundly wished otherwise.

“Now we are getting somewhere,” murmured Marjorie, delighted. “Darcy had not been thinking of how Miss Elliot would affect Georgiana.”

He obviously had not, otherwise he would have realized Miss Elliot was exactly the sort of proud, haughty woman to frighten Georgiana into total silence, and fits of terrified clumsiness. The soup course was very nearly a disaster, especially when Sir Walter Elliot unwisely brought up politics and assumed they were all Tories.

The Earl stared down the table at Sir Walter with an attitude of baffled incredulity.

“We are a Whiggish household,” said Marjorie, with an air of ‘silly dear, what a thing forget,’ and a glint in her eye that added ‘especially silly as I am the most prominent Whig hostess since my aunt the Duchess of Devonshire died.’ “We model ourselves after Pitt the Younger, who was Lord Matlock’s great friend, from Oxford on. We consider ourselves independent Whigs.”

“Wigs have long been out of fashion,” said Miss Elliot, snidely.

Marjorie went rigid with displeasure, her smile fixed. When she spoke, her voice was like sugar lumps in a treacle sauce. “My dear Miss Elliot, what a wit you are! Whigs and wigs. How clever. Are you a Tory then?”

Colonel Fitzwilliam braced himself for the impact of this new canonade.

“I do not follow politics; I find it very tiresome.”

“You do not? And yet you claim to be a Tory! How very singular of you— but I suppose you are so...unique an individual you defy most categorizations.”

Miss Elliot answered confusedly and Marjorie pressed her advantage, dragging out, always with the same look of sweet innocence, each difference in Miss Elliot’s accomplishments, habits, education and background as she reported them to be and as they actually were. Colonel Fitzwilliam shot a hapless look at Sybil and applied himself to his wine. Julian was watching the proceedings open-mouthed, his bit of beef never quite making it in, for he was always setting down his fork in shock at each new spurt of defiance a mere _Miss Elliot_ had for a _Lady Stornoway._ The Earl had given up the attempt to eat and watched the proceedings with a grim amusement. Honoria and Miss Duncan spent their time trying not to snigger.

After a particularly nasty comment from Miss Elliot about one of Marjorie’s many misbehaving cousins, Lady Caroline Lamb, was met with a scathing critique of the Viscountess Dalrymple’s last visit to town, Colonel Fitzwilliam ventured a glance at the Elliots. Anne, on his left, was mortified and, as her gentle interruptions went entirely unheard, and her attempts at distracting Georgiana were met with a wide-eyed look of sheer terror, she had given up speaking to stare at her plate. Across the table, Sir Walter had engaged Darcy in a long, very one-sided conversation about hair pomade. Colonel Fitzwilliam had not enough courage— real, or Dutch, as the saying went— to delve into that particular tangle, but felt that they were in for more excruciatingly painful dinners (even by Fitzwilliam standards) if Darcy could not be brought to see that Elizabeth Elliot was genuinely awful.

Fortunately, this occurred after dinner. The gentlemen did not stay long at their port, for none of the Fitzwilliams had anything to say to Sir Walter, and Colonel Fitzwilliam immediately asked Georgiana to play for them all. Georgiana looked her thanks and fled to the piano at once.

Then Miss Elliot crossed the line.

While Georgiana sat down to play, Miss Elliot began to talk.

The Fitzwilliams all looked at each other in horror or muted triumph, as suited their dispositions. Darcy looked properly aghast. Then, when Georgiana, fumbled, unsure how to handle someone talking through her performance, Miss Elliot condescended to exclaim, “Do not worry, my dear. Someday you shall play really well, I am sure. What other accomplishments have you?”

Georgiana had the aspect of a hermit crab abruptly retreating into its shell.

“That is all right,” said Miss Elliot, soothingly. “Schools such as yours are more to form connections than to create accomplishments. I think one of the younger royal princesses is there; have you befriended her yet? Let me assure you, it would be a most desirable friendship—”

Darcy looked at Miss Elliot as if he had never seen her before. Miss Elliot continued on in this vein, not at all noticing Georgiana’s discomfort, and indeed, seemed to think the best cure for shyness was continual notice; Colonel Fitzwilliam was moved to intervene by asking Georgiana if she’d like to see the kittens in the barn and taking her away. They passed a much pleasanter evening than the rest of the family; when they returned, Georgiana still silent, but in slightly better spirits, the Elliots had departed, and the drawing room had that strange air of both tension and release that comes after a pitched battle. Sybil informed Colonel Fitzwilliam that there had been a truly vicious dispute over what an accomplished lady truly was.

“I am sorry to have showed I was not one,” said Georgiana, on the verge of tears.

“I am sorry Georgiana,” said Darcy, putting his arm about her, and kissing her forehead, “that you should ever think so! You are the most accomplished young lady I know. Anyone who cannot see that, I shall not see.”

The relief was general and profound. 

 


	9. Elizabeth/ Colonel Fitzwilliam fluff for kudzery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudzery asked for Elizabeth teaching Colonel Fitzwilliam a language-- it ended up being Colonel Fitzwilliam learning how to express himself. Hope that's ok! Also here's the nonsense song Elizabeth's singing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HHLj8rKrZ8

_August 1812. Madrid._

It was late and hot and the Major General was once again droning on about the United States of America. Britain was supposedly at war with America (again), which was how they got into the subject, but Colonel Fitzwilliam was tipsy and tired and overheated enough to lose track of who was fighting with whom.

There were times when Colonel Fitzwilliam, plagued with the transport and feeding of six hundred men and officers, about a hundred horses, innumerable wives and camp followers, and an ever-varying, ever-vexing number of donkeys, with no roads or supply but endless floods of mud, wondered what exactly he was at war against. Theoretically the French. But when faced with Spanish hostility and British indifference, he sometimes wondered if he was just at war with everyone and hadn't been informed of the fact. It seemed of a piece with how the Major General ran the whole division.

“--and the way the men speak! Oh their accents! One could hardly call it English; even a Yorkshireman would be hard pressed to understand them. I cannot understand how our possessions in the Americas--”

“Former,” muttered Colonel Algarve, who had command of the Portuguese troops appended to their division.

The Major General paused. “What was that?”

In Portuguese, but in a very honeyed tone, Colonel Algarve said, “I said ‘former,’ you blithering idiot. If you are the sort of man the British think fit to put above my people as officers, it's a wonder you haven't lost the Peninsula more permanently. Thank God Portugal still has Brazil. It may be all we have left by the time you have finished your blundering.”

The Major General looked to Colonel Fitzwilliam, who was the only senior officer who spoke anything close to fluent Portuguese.

He erred on the side of a diplomatic translation. “Colonel Algarve said that the United States of America is a former British possession, sir. He hopes, er... after we are done fighting in the Peninsula, we will regain it. As Portugal has Brazil.”

The Major General was gratified at this sentiment, and went back to his story. The other colonels looked longingly into the empty bottoms of their brandy glasses.

“You took some liberties in your translation,” muttered Colonel Algarve, in Portuguese, leaning over to Colonel Fitzwilliam.

Colonel Fitzwilliam smiled wryly and responded in the same language. “Do you wonder why?”

Colonel Algarve grinned. “No. Your Portuguese is not so bad! Your accent is very English, though.”

“I cannot quite seem to shake the accent,” he admitted. “I never have, since I was a child. The French master at Eton quite despaired of me.”

“Really?”

“I used to be able to drop my ‘h’s and ape a low class Hampshire accent but it horrified my parents, and so my tutors beat it out of me as soon as they could. I suppose I spent far too long being instructed in the proper methods of speech and expression to ever easily let them fall.”

From the other side of the room came a burst of laughter, bright as candle flame glancing off a chandelier pendant. The wives of the senior officers were clustered together in clouds of floating white muslin, striped by the colorful fall of ribbon and shawls, speckled with flashes of brighter color, whenever their jewels caught the light. Colonel Fitzwilliam turned instinctively to the sound; he sometimes joked to himself that he was attuned to the sound of his wife as a strings section to a concertmaster. Whatever note she struck tended to reverberate within him; unless he was under severe strain, he began, however unconsciously, to tune himself up or down to match her emotional register. This was admittedly his instinctive reaction to most social interactions, to catch the tones and emotions of those about him, and to match them, or to try to blend and bridge discordance in quest of harmony, but it had never before been so strong an impulse, or so centralized upon one person.

Fortunately for him Elizabeth was of a lively, naturally cheerful disposition, and looked at the world to laugh at it. Colonel Fitzwilliam’s spirits often rose to met hers. He could not recall the last time he had been so generally inclined towards good humor. It was as if the music of the world had transposed itself up to a major key.

“Your wife has a good accent,” said Colonel Algarve, following the line of his gaze.

“Mrs. Fitzwilliam is musical,” he replied. Which was mostly true. Elizabeth was an expressive rather than an accurate musician. She was comically dismayed when faced with any complicated piece (especially any complicated time signature), and the resultant musical cacophony rarely matched what the composer intended, but even if she did not always play the right notes, she always got at the spirit of a piece, and few people who heard her play or sing found her wanting.

“I hope she will sing for us this evening,” Colonel Algarve said. “The Major General is not rude enough to speak through that.”

The Major General cleared his throat. He had Opinions on America, which were about twenty years out of date, but which he clearly thought of interest to his senior officers, and enough interest to require absolute silence from every colonel, lieutenant-colonel, and major currently attending him.

The Major General would have to be satisfied with a simulacrum of interest, decided Colonel Fitzwilliam. He had found his wife among the other ladies, and by angling himself in his chair, could look at her profile while appearing to look at the Major General. Elizabeth had worn her diamonds that evening. Colonel Fitzwilliam could see where the clasp of her necklace had listed from the back of her neck to where neck and shoulder met--one of his favorite spots of kiss-- and the flash of her bracelet as she raised her left hand to gesture. He also recalled how she had looked when he first clasped the bracelet about her wrist-- she had been covered by little more than her unbound hair and the mussed sheets of the marriage bed, her right hand resting over a slight stubble burn he had unwittingly inflicted where neck met shoulder, her expression dreamy and unmistakably, blissfully happy. When he followed this up with necklace and earrings to match Elizabeth began to get exasperated, but Colonel Fitzwilliam gently steered his thoughts away from their usual tiffs about needless expenditures and back to his wedding night proper.

This left Colonel Fitzwilliam in a considerably happier mood than the rest of his compatriots, though he hoped he would not be called upon to rise from the table any time soon.

The Major General seemed rather dismayed by the looks of polite boredom (or in Colonel Algarve’s case, pained boredom) that his listeners had given him. Colonel Fitzwilliam had long ago developed a look of genial tolerance which he deployed when annoyed or daydreaming, and this, combined with the fact that he appeared to be in good spirits and was still looking in vaguely the right direction, caused the Major General to boom out, “Fitzwilliam!”

He nearly started out of his seat and snapped to attention. “Sir, yes sir!”

“At ease, at ease,” said the Major General. “What do you think of the Americas?”

“Very little,” he admitted, which caused a general snigger. As the Major General seemed pleased with this particular response, he thought to press his luck and say, "I do not think any of us could do justice to this topic after you have covered it so extensively, sir. Perhaps we might have some music?”

The Major General was pleased with this seeming tribute and turned to bark out, “Mrs. Fitzwilliam!”

Elizabeth turned so swiftly one of her earrings hit her on the cheek. She rubbed her cheek as she curtsied. “Sir?”

“Would you favor us with an air?”

"Of course, sir.”

Elizabeth chose a Scotch folk song with one of her favorite nonsense choruses of “Fa la lanky down dilly,” about a dragon who ate the sword of a knight attempting to slay her. It was a good choice; a song to make the bored audience chuckle and revive a little. Colonel Fitzwilliam turned pages for her, which allowed him to look busy while still daydreaming about his wife. Even after four months of marriage, he kept taking sincere pleasure in the oddest aspects of Elizabeth's existence, discovering little details that endeared her to him all the more. The scent of the milk of roses cream she used to maintain the fineness of her complexion delighted him particularly that evening. The heat of the Spanish night and her body had killed most of the fragrance, leaving a faint hint of rose that give him the drunken, somewhat foolish (and immediately repressed) impulse to bury his face against her neck in search of the last traces of it.

“Your wife, she plays well,” said Colonel Algrave, in exaggeratedly bad English.

“ _Si_ ," said Colonel Fitzwilliam.

“ _Si_ is Spanish, _sim_ is Portuguese,” Elizabeth mock-chided him. “Too much Spanish brandy on the tongue, sir!”

He was on the verge of an inappropriate quip about tongues but knew Elizabeth well enough to know she would blush horribly and sink into an embarrassed silence at anything too risqué in public.

“You shall have to tutor me, dearest,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said instead.

This was agreed to, and they made their excuses to go.

Colonel Fitzwilliam allowed himself the yawn he had been repressing all evening, before offering his arm to his wife. She took a moment to change from slippers to boots and loop the train of her dress over her arm before taking it. He tried to say something gallant about carrying her, so she would not risk the Spanish mud at all, on the way from headquarters back to their billet, but it came out rather nonsensical, since he could not recall the word for mud in Spanish, Portuguese, or English.

“How drunk are you, darling?” asked Elizabeth.

“Not terrifically, Mrs. Fitzwilliam. Haven't you heard that men can become horribly tongue tied when in the company of pretty women?”

She was well-pleased with the compliment, though she clearly didn't believe him. “Oh yes! You've seen me in every possible attitude and angle, clothed and not, but the sight of my boots and two inches of stockings cause you to become incoherent.”

“I'm a right numpty,” he said, trying for a Hampshire accent. “So tongue-tied, ma’am, I forget ‘ow tae speak a ‘tall!”

She grinned up at him. “And what was that, pray?”

“I'm frum ‘Ampshire, mum,” he tried. “This ‘show we speak.”

Elizabeth burst out laughing.

“Oooh arrrrh,” he said, trying his best not to sound horribly posh while doing so. “Orright mush?”

“I haven't the faintest idea what you asked.”

“Ertfordshire don't ‘ave an accent, luv?”

“The farther from London one gets the more West Country one hears, but Meryton is too close to London to have escaped the spread of rhetoric and elocution masters. I don't think I could convincingly speak English with any accent but the one I was taught. It's why my Portuguese has a Lisbon accent-- I'm always so influenced by my first teacher.” She considered her options, saw him smiling down at her, and tugged lightly on his arm. “Stop smiling at me like that, colonel; I shan't be able to concentrate. I shall be too distracted by the idea I must kiss you.”

This was no inducement to stop. Elizabeth shook her head, but flattened the hand tucked into his elbow onto his forearm, so she could use it to balance as she raised herself to kiss him. Colonel Fitzwilliam loved the expressiveness of her kisses as he loved the expressiveness of her conversation. For most of his life, he was not encouraged to properly express himself, and when he got up the courage (or sometimes, merely the exasperation) to try, he could never make himself heard. He was never listened to, and if he was, it was only so someone else could try and contradict him. Colonel Fitzwilliam had never gotten that impression from Elizabeth, who asked him questions, and talked with him, and kissed him as he had always, secretly, stupidly longed to be kissed-- with reassurance and recognition. He always knew himself understood and beloved, his struggle recognized and pitied, especially when, as she did now, she tried to smooth out the lines tension had carved about his mouth with her fingertips.

“There you are, my dear,” Colonel Fitzwilliam  said, as she stroked his temple. “A kiss from you and I’m speaking like an Etonian again.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Ridiculous man.”

"I even," he said, looping his free arm about her waist, "could pay attention to my promised lesson in Portuguese. How do I tell you I love you, in Portuguese?"

"Easily enough! It's the same as in Latin. And I know your Latin is good, and good enough I nearly blushed when you displayed it to me on the carriage ride to London from Kent."

Colonel Fitzwilliam recalled tracing the words on her palm, marveling at this liberty, at this subrosa but free conversation, where even his silliest words were valued. " _Te amo_?"

" _Sim_!" Elizabeth said, nodding. " _Te amo, meu querido."_

" _Te amo_ ," he replied, in so poor an attempt at a Portuguese accent, he gave up and ended with a very British but very heartfelt, "my dearest Bennet."


	10. In which Colonel Fitzwilliam and Miss Bennet Engage in Blatant Improprities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is all cynicinafishbowl's fault.

Mr. Bennet had promised to speak to Colonel Fitzwilliam at the ball and Elizabeth was so delighted, no one could make her be serious, or keep her still. She flitted from one abandoned task to another, catching up her cousins and spinning them around in games that never lasted longer than thirty seconds, and running every moment to the window overlooking the street.

“Lizzy,” said Jane, laughing at her, “you are quite distracted today.”

“Oh quite!” she agreed, cheerfully. “Do you think the colonel will come back again today Jane? Perhaps not, after his family was good enough to take us to Drury Lane last evening. I suppose they must have a great deal to do planning a ball and must be engaged all day today.”

“It is still a week away, Lizzy,” said Mrs. Gardiner. “I am sure Colonel Fitzwilliam will call on you today, as he has done every single day you have not gone over to Matlock House. Do sit and finish cutting that crepe to the pattern, or you will find yourself at the ball without anything to wear.”

Elizabeth managed to finish cutting out her pattern before growing distracted again and asking Mrs. Gardiner, “But suppose he is busy? I do not know how much work must go into engagements. Do you suppose he needs to meet with a lawyer or something of the sort?”

“That comes after your father gives his permission,” said Mrs. Gardiner, smiling. “You know, Lizzy, I would not be surprised if your father was only waiting so you might be one-and-twenty when you married.”

Elizabeth collapsed histrionically onto a settee and declared, in a decent imitation of Sarah Siddons from the evening prior, “Every day I am not married I grow one-and-twenty years older. I shall be rolled up the aisle in a Bath chair at this point.” She spotted a horse and rider coming up the street and sprang to the window, followed by all her cousins, on the reasonable assumption that she was playing a game with them. “Oh aunt, dear aunt, you are the sybil of aunts. I think that’s him.”

The eldest Gardiner boy proclaimed his disappointment that Colonel Fitzwilliam was not in his regimentals.

“Pity indeed,” said Elizabeth, happily conjuring up an image of her intended in red coat and gold braid. She thought it would suit him admirably. “But do not be too discontented. I have yet to see him in uniform, either, Eddie. The colonel is on leave for injuries he got in Spain.”

This, of course, fascinated the children and as soon as Colonel Fitzwilliam was announced, they dragged on his sleeves and demanded to know what injures he had gotten in Spain and if they could see them. Colonel Fitzwilliam was quite good with children and crouched down so that he was at eye level with them, listening with smiling attention to the barrage of questions.

“I am afraid I cannot show you all my injuries, for I would have to remove my coat, which one should not do in the presence of all these ladies,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, quite solemnly. “But here is a sample.” He offered his right arm. “Push up my sleeve a little.”

Eddie cautiously did so, revealing a fine tracery of pinkened scars over the sliver of right forearm exposed. “Coo-er!” Eddie exclaimed appreciatively. “What you’d get those from? A dragoon? A platoon of sappers?”

“A French cannon,” replied Colonel Fitzwilliam. “My regiment seized some from the French and one exploded. These are all the marks from the shrapnel.”

Elizabeth was scarcely less interested. She had noticed a faint pink line under her own name on the colonel’s wrist, but had not seen the full extent of his injuries.

“Are there still bits of canon in your arm then?” asked Eddie, eagerly.

“No, no, the metal is all out, only the scars remain. Though as often as I tell myself that, my old injuries still do smart at times.”

“What do you do when they hurt?” asked the youngest Gardiner boy, who was at a stage where he was fascinated with disease and injury.

“Oh usually I tell myself it’s nothing and that it will go away, and sometimes I go tell a doctor about it and he tells me the pain will pass, but the only thing that really helps is rubbing at the hurt.”

“That does not seem medically sound,” said the youngest Gardiner boy. It was a phrase he had heard Mr. Bennet say, and he had been so impressed by it he repeated it whenever possible.

Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed and said, “Well I suppose not, it’s just a trick I picked up in India. The lower castes think you can rub any pains away. They’ve even turned it into an art. Massage, I think it’s called.”

“Come now, come now,” said Mrs. Gardiner, rising, “the colonel’s come for your Cousin Lizzy, not you nosy lot. Stop plaguing him for his medical history.”

The children were so dejected by this that Elizabeth laughed.

“I think I can share him for one game if he is agreeable,” she said, going over to Colonel Fitzwilliam and trying to help pull him upright. This was merely an excuse to touch his arm; for she did not let go when he was the tallest person in the room once more. “Shall we play sardines out back? I shall hide first.” To Colonel Fitzwilliam she whispered, “Behind the chestnut tree!”

Elizabeth flung a shawl about her shoulders and gaily tripped off. Gracechurch Street, though quite an elegant area full of smart shops, warehouses, and cafes, was still a somewhat closely packed one, and the garden behind the house was about a tenth the size of the one at Matlock House. Still, it was very tastefully and beautifully arranged, and there were plenty of spots for a sufficiently enterprising person to find a moment or two of quiet. Elizabeth had found one on one of her frequent adolescent visits to London, a sort of natural seat made by a low branch of a chestnut tree, and hidden partly by the trunk and some bushes from the house, and pressed up against the walls of the neighbors’ gardens on all other sides. She made her way through the bushes to this and perched on her usual seat, tucking one leg under her and letting the other swing.

The children began their noisy search for her, but seemed to be staying close to the house; and in about five minutes she spotted Colonel Fitzwilliam striding up the path. He grinned when he saw her. “What a charming bower you’ve got here, Miss Bennet!”

“Yes! I’m quite reluctant to have my cousins find it. I hope you have shaken them off.”

“They think you cheated and went into the kitchen.” He found the narrow gap in the bushes Elizabeth usually used and managed to successfully squeeze himself through. “Your aunt’s maids, I am afraid to say, can be bought very cheaply. I gave one of them a shilling and she distracted all four children with tarts fresh from the oven.”

She laughed. “Is that a standard diversionary tactic from Spain?”

“Well, the French do live off the countryside. We have been known to lure enemy troops to where we want them to be, based on rumors of supply and the like.” He glanced at the branch speculatively.

Elizabeth moved so that her back pressed against the trunk and Colonel Fitzwilliam could lift himself up. There was not much room for him; their knees touched. Elizabeth could not say she minded. A little impulsively, she said, “Colonel— Richard— I suppose I shouldn’t call you ‘Richard’ until you have spoken to my father.”

“Probably not,” he said, put put a hand on her knee and squeezed it lightly in consolation. “Still, I shan’t tell anyone if you do when there is no one else to hear us.”

“Shall we seal the bargain, Richard?”

Colonel Fitzwilliam looked down at her with such warmth she flushed. “Good God, I already lead you off the primrose path enough as it is. I really should not kiss you as often as I do.”

Elizabeth clutched at her heart. “Ugh! Sir! Are you trying to break my heart? I really do not know how I would get on if you stopped kissing me. I should likely die.”

“We cannot have that,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said and kissed her.

Elizabeth liked kissing. She had always known that, from her first parlor game. She had played many in her day. As one of the local beauties of Meryton, she had never been excluded from any parlor game she deigned to take part in. Indeed, she had often been eagerly pressed to join them. But everything was somehow _better_ when it was Colonel Fitzwilliam she was kissing. She supposed it might be experience, for she knew how to kiss, and she was certain Colonel Fitzwilliam knew how to do much more than that. Or it might have been that now she knew what she liked, she could better ask for it and be given it. But she often, dreamily thought that this was just another benefit of finding one’s soulmate. The kissing was always good.

Elizabeth sighed with pleasure. Colonel Fitzwilliam broke off the kiss, gave her a quick peck when she pouted, and said, “Hopefully that has staved off your untimely demise.”

“I feel so dreadfully weak,” she lamented.

Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed and, putting his arms about her waist and drawing her to him, peppered her upturned face with kisses. Elizabeth was delighted by this and, quite dropping her shawl, flung her arms about his shoulders until they were kissing in earnest. Her heart thrilled within her; all seemed bright and wondrous and beautiful.

“Oh Richard,” she said, dreamily, when he moved to kiss her cheek, her ear, the curve of her jaw, “I beg you _never_ to threaten to stop kissing me. I shall insist upon it being put in the marriage contract. Colonel Fitzwilliam must give Mrs. Fitzwilliam one kiss every day, in addition to such-and-such amount of pin money paid per quarter day—”

“Only one?” he asked, pulling back. “What sort of miser do you think I am, my dear?”

“Two then, doled out each time the clock strikes twelve.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam tried to match her faux-solemnities, but ended up laughing. “Dearest Miss Bennet, how poor do you think I am, if I can afford to give my wife only two kisses per diem?”

“Oh, I am only teasing you for thinking your pay and all the investments your mother left you are hardly enough to live on. You have roughly eight thousand kisses per annum at your disposal, which to your mind is a completely paltry sum, which will not keep a wife in any comfort.”

“I would give you all eight thousand at once,” he said, dropping one on her lips, “if I thought I had time enough at present.”

“I demand a ten percent down payment. My lawyer is very intransigent on the subject.”

“What, all eight hundred in a lump sum?”

“You have already started doling out such a sum, have you not? You might as well keep going until all your debts are paid.”

He obliged her with more, until their hands were roaming, his hair was deranged, and when she pressed against him, half in his lap, with an inchoate longing for more contact than she had already, Colonel Fitzwilliam broke somewhat hurriedly away, saying, “No, no, we ought to stop here, Miss Bennet; it really wouldn’t do for your cousins finding me ravishing you in your aunt’s chestnut tree.”

“Really?” Elizabeth was quite intrigued. “ _Am_ I being ravished? I always thought there was less clothing involved.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam groaned and leaned his forehead against hers. “You are going to kill me, Miss Bennet.”

“Such a pity that what revives me slays you,” she teased. “Oh but come now, Richard— you cannot tell me that you at all regret our being a little improper. And I cannot think it so very improper. We are soulmates; we shall be married.”

He pulled away a little, taking her hands in his and studying them. “It is very easy to be carried away with such thinking, my dear, that is true enough. I certainly have been. It’s the sort of narrative hammered into one’s head. One finds one’s soulmate, one marries and there’s an end to it. But we are still unfortunately far from being married. I am sorry, I ought to— I realize I have not been quite… restraining myself as a gentleman ought.”

“I have been very glad you haven’t,” admitted Elizabeth, blushing violently.

He smiled, running his thumbs over the backs of her hands, and then raised them to his lips. “I am well aware of that, my dear. And because I am aware of that I really ought to behave more circumspectly than less, but….” Colonel Fitzwilliam looked at her with an expression of such love and wonder Elizabeth did not know how she could bear it without bursting. “Oh Lizzy, I had rather given up hope of this. I keep wanting to touch you, to prove to myself you are real. I have dreamed you too long, my dear, to trust the evidence of my senses.”

There could be no answer to that but a passionate embrace, and Elizabeth whispering in his ear, “I have even less excuse than you, sir; the only excuse I can offer is that I love you.”

“You will never get me to stop when you say such things.”

Perhaps she was behaving improperly, Elizabeth thought guiltily, as they began to kiss again, but could it be so very bad if she broke with propriety out of love and concern for another human being, especially if that person was her soulmate, the person she had always been told she had been pre-ordained by God to marry? Elizabeth did not really buy into this method of thinking— she valued Colonel Fitzwilliam for much more than the fact that he happened to have her name on his wrist— but she had been told it so often, it still felt true. And she was beginning to realize another truth— Colonel Fitzwilliam had hurts, deep ones, that could not be soothed by words alone, but by touch and physical action. And as it gave her such pleasure to give him these proofs of love, what harm could there be in giving him what he so clearly needed to heal?

There was the general clatter and incoherent shouting of the Gardiner children as they streaked noisily down the gravel path to the chestnut tree; and Elizabeth and Colonel Fitzwilliam did not quite manage to pull apart before the cousins found them.

The children plagued them with nursery rhymes about kissing in a tree until Colonel Fitzwilliam was obliged to bribe them all into silence with his gorier stories of battle. Elizabeth thought it a worthwhile and very noble sacrifice.


	11. In which Captain Fitzwilliam meets Captain Pascal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is itslisa's fault. Also some warnings here for battle wounds, regency-era medicine, and mild, but period-accurate anti-Semitism.

“Private!” Captain Tilney was calling out. “Private Whatever-you’re-called, and Private I-don’t-give-a-damn! Get over here! Captain Fitzwilliam has been hit by one of those blasted rockets of Tipu’s and got knocked off his horse.”

Captain Fitzwilliam, lying dazed upon the ground, the wind knocked out of him, his right thigh throbbing so painfully he would have screamed if he’d had the breath for it, tried to make sense of the powder smoke about him, and the shadowy figures weaving in and out of it. Here and there there were flashes of red, reassuring and familiar, and the longer, darker cylinders of Tipu Sultan’s Mysore rockets, the points of the swords at the ends of the cast iron rockets gleaming like falling stars.

“Easy, easy now,” Captain Tilney was saying; Captain Fitzwilliam heard a horse whinney in response, and struggled to fill his lungs with the smokey air. His mouth felt coated with gunpowder just from opening it.

Hands were upon his shoulders, pulling him up.

“Thank you,” Captain Fitzwilliam wheezed out.

Captain Tilney’s sooty face appeared suddenly through the smoke. Though the two captains generally maintained a polite detente— for neither understood the pleasures of the other, nor particularly liked the other— Captain Tilney looked genuinely worried as he held out a flask. “Drink up. Thought old Tipu’d killed you. It’s only— Christ!”

Captain Fitzwilliam followed the line of Captain Tilney’s gaze and realized that as bad as his leg felt, it looked much worse. His white riding overalls were turning a sort of blackish red with blood. Captain Fitzwilliam fumbled at the knot in his officer’s sash.

Captain Tilney undid it for him and brusquely but quickly helped him turn it into a tourniquet. “Right-o. Off to the medical tents with you. Best have the privates carry you; I don’t think you can ride like this.”

“It feels much worse than it looks now,” Captain Fitzwilliam said dazedly. He took a long swig of brandy; it burned away some of the gunpowder coating the inside of his throat.

“Take another for the road,” said Captain Tilney, when Captain Fitzwilliam would have returned the flask. “Jesus, Fitz, they’ll chop your leg off, I don’t doubt.”

“Surely not,” said Captain Fitzwilliam, uncertainly. But as he staggered off, a private under each arm, he began to feel much more certain of the possibility. He was a muddle of pain and nerves and thanked God profoundly for being born to the Earl and Countess of Matlock, for he was given immediate precedence. Two stewards rushed him in to see an assistant surgeon as soon as he arrived. Someone gave him a chair, someone else gave him a mug of tea, and someone else began cutting away the bloody part of his overalls and replacing his officer’s sash with a proper tourniquet. He downed  the tea and leaned back in the chair, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain.

“Vinegar, steward!” came an authoritative voice.

Captain Fitzwilliam struggled to open his eyes, but the voice— it was a pleasant one, with a trace of an accent— said, in soothing tones, “No, no, have a rest. You look done up.”

“I thank you very much, sir.”

“I am Captain Pascal, the new assistant surgeon. I am just going to have a look at this leg for you.”

“Pardon me for asking, sir,” said Captain Fitzwilliam, “but could you try not to lop it off? I should hate not to have a leg to stand on before my men.”

Captain Pascal laughed, a light, pleasant sound. “Well, we can’t have that! Military discipline would break down entirely. But I assure you, I am very good. If your leg can be saved, I am the man to do it. Steward, careful with that!”

Captain Fitzwilliam’s eyes flew open; he flung his empty mug in the air, half-jumped out of his seat, and cursed with more creativity than coherency. One of the stewards had been carrying a jug of vinegar and spilled some on Captain Fitzwilliam’s leg while trying to pour it in a basin.

“I do beg your pardon,” said Captain Pascal. “I find washing with vinegar keeps away any miasmas that might enter a wound and cause infection.”

Captain Fitzwilliam was about to swear again, but went abruptly mute. Captain Pascal had come into his line of sight and turned out to be unexpectedly good-looking. He appeared to be a few years older than Captain Fitzwilliam, with a brown complexion, intelligent dark eyes, and waving dark hair pulled into a neat military queue. His profile was striking, his person oddly fashionable and fastidious for a surgeon, a class of people Captain Fitzwilliam always associated with bloodied aprons. Captain Fitzwilliam dropped back into his chair, feeling a little stunned.

Captain Pascal rolled up his sleeves and briskly washed his hands in the basin. He wore some kind of silver amulet on a strip of braided leather about his left wrist. “What’s your name?”

“Fitzwilliam—Captain Fitzwilliam. Coldstream Guards. Though, er—I suppose you— you rather know that last.”

“I don’t know what it was that tipped me off,” said Captain Pascal, smiling. “The uniform possibly? The fact that there are no other regiments in this engagement? Or perhaps because I am one of the assistant surgeons _of_ the Coldstream Guards?”

Captain Fitzwilliam laughed. “I swear I’m not such a numpty as this normally. It’s only that Tipu Sultan’s Mysore Rockets rather shook me. The first time I saw one whizzing at me through the smoke, I felt rather as if I’d wandered into a third-rate traveling circus, with all the sword throwers having an off day.”

“Ah, and that’s the reason for your calling upon me, I assume.” He deftly removed a pocket watch from under his apron. “Wrist please. I shall need to take your pulse.”

Captain Fitzwilliam’s heart raced involuntarily at the first brush of Captain Pascal’s fingertips on his right wrist. His touch was delicate but sure, and there was a gracefulness to Captain Pascal’s movements as he went about his duties, that caught the eye and made one wish to keep watching him, as one might watch a dancer moving to center stage before embarking on a difficult solo routine. Captain Fitzwilliam attempted to distract himself by looking at Captain Pascal’s amulet. It had characters on it that looked vaguely familiar. At first he thought it might be Greek, but no, that was not quite right….

“Hm. Elevated. Well, let’s see….” Captain Pascal bent over Captain Fitzwilliam’s leg and, wiping away some of the blood and vinegar with a wad of lint, said, “All this fuss over nothing more than a flesh wound! I shall stitch you up and you shall rest for a week or so and then be back in the saddle.”

Major Spicer entered, cradling his bloody hand to his chest, and bawled out, “Hi! Hop to at once, surgeon, there’s a major present!”

Captain Pascal paused, swab upraised and then, with a sigh, dropped it into his steward’s outstretched hand. “Steward, clean that blood away, so I can see what I’m doing when I get back.”

The major, a person Captain Fitzwilliam had always disliked, looked at Captain Pascal and said, “Hm. You’re that new fella Whitehall foisted on us.”

“That is how warrant officers are assigned to regiments,” said Captain Pascal, a little dryly.

“I want the chief surgeon.”

“He’s in the middle of an amputation. I am more than happy to take a look at—”

“Where’s the other assistant surgeon?”

“Pulling bullets out of Lieutenant Boyle. If I can—”

“I refuse to have a surgeon who isn’t a Christian!” snapped the major.

‘Ah,’ thought Captain Fitzwilliam. ‘The amulet’s in Hebrew. That’s what it was.’

“Well, it’s me or gangrene, take your pick,” said Captain Pascal, dryly. “Do pick gangrene. My diary is rather full up with engagements at present. I would welcome the break.”

The major grumblingly submitted. He had been shot through the hand, and the wound was cleaned, packed with lint, and bandaged in less time than it took the steward to clean Captain Fitzwilliam’s wound. Captain Fitzwilliam had watched Captain Pascal in fascination. The more he looked at Captain Pascal the more he liked him. One seldom came across men quite so good looking, or quite so graceful.

The major departed and the steward ran out to fetch bandages; Captain Pascal was stitching away at the wound before Captain Fitzwilliam realized he’d been staring for the past two minutes.

“Have you never met a Jew before?” Captain Pascal asked— sharply, but in the way the point of the needle he was using on Captain Fitzwilliam’s wound was sharp; as if the pointedness and the pain it caused was only in service of repair. “Surprise! We walk and talk like normal people. We don’t have horns, if that's what you’re looking for.”

Captain Fitzwilliam’s inhibitions were low with battle fatigue, brandy, and blood loss, and he was horrified to think he had been accidentally offensive. He blurted out, “No! Oh no, I— it’s only that I think you’re terribly attractive—“ his sense of self-preservation caught up with him. Captain Fitzwilliam was mortified. “I— I am so sorry! I don’t know what— I oughtn’t to have said that—“

Lawrence Spencer was always telling him to have a care. Even in the army, where everyone chucked sons with ambiguous or definitively male names on their wrists, there was a certain way to go about things, a system of careful signals to be discretely deployed. One didn’t just blurt out to strangers one was a lover of one's own sex like this.

Captain Pascal had frozen, needle upraised. For a moment Captain Fitzwilliam was frightfully certain he had offended him past all bearing. But then someone opened the tent flap to admit another wounded man, and there was light enough to see that Captain Pascal was fighting a smile.

“Well,” Captain Pascal said, flicking his gaze up with a flirtatious smile, “that explains why your pulse was racing when I took it.”

Captain Fitzwilliam blushed.


	12. In which Lady Marjorie meets Lord Stornoway

Lady  Marjorie Spencer was a creature of reflection, in both contradictory senses of the term—of deep thought, internal workings hiding from view; and of surfaces, of mirrors and the throwing back of an expected image.

  
As a child she had been exceptionally pretty, and often brought out into drawing rooms for display well before she was able to command real interest in the proceedings. Not knowing why the adults patted her pretty brown curls and complimented her parents, Marjorie tried to catch glimpses of herself in mirrors, in goblets, in jewelry, in windows. What did the adults see, that caused them such delight? Earlier that day she had not been worthy of attention, even though she had wished with all her heart to show her Papa how many countries she could find on the big globe in his library. Now she was put in a proper frock and told not to speak, on pain of spanking, and everyone loved her.

  
This was the game of her childhood, to see if she could catch, in the corner of her eye, a glimpse of what made her have this limited command over the adults. Marjorie was well aware that her beauty and behavior could be her only allure. No one was at all interested in what she said, or what she thought, or what she could do. Studying herself in the mirror in her room only brought lectures on vanity from her nursemaid, and when she looked at herself full-on in the big mirror over the mantle, Marjorie only saw her own reflection; that familiar, exterior copy of herself, the thing she was always a little afraid would move half-a-second behind her and yet never did. It was the same as it ever was. She did not see any differences in her pre-dinner and post-dinner selves, though she was treated so differently, she was sure she could not be the same person.

  
Marjorie began then, to try and catch glimpses of herself in the eyes of others, and in the reactions others had to her. She found herself playing the game the first time she went to Almack’s— not out of curiosity now, but out of a sense of necessity. Marjorie had spent all her life learning the very narrow set of freedoms allowed to her as a woman, and had learnt, even better, that a woman’s only access to those, or possibly greater, was in her choice of husband. Marjorie knew she must sell herself, but she would sell herself high; and to do so, she would be everything she was told men would want. She would be an English rose, virtuous but, sweet-natured and likable; beautiful, yet natural; a proper lady, and still the sort always referred to as ‘a veddy good sort of gel.’

  
Marjorie saw, all about her, a reflection of her successful navigation of the limited space between ‘demure’ and ‘charming,’ by the calculating looks turning to approving smiles from the women and lingering glances (and sometimes leers) from the men. The latter Marjorie found oddly intimidating. She was used to being looked at, used to producing, instantaneously, the pretty polished surface that others loved to look upon, but she did not know what to do with such appraising glances while in quite so low-cut a gown, of such thin muslin, with only her aunt by her side. Marjorie looked hopefully about for her mother.

  
The Duchess of Devonshire scanned the crowd as well, deftly steering Marjorie away from a very eager looking young man. “Tory,” said the Duchess of Devonshire, not very apologetically. “You don’t want to dance with him, my dear. You’d hate it. No, no—” with an attitude of suppressed excitement “—I have someone I need to find for you.”

  
Marjorie stifled a sigh. Her aunt had been this way since she, Marjorie, had tentatively revealed her soulmark when dressing that evening. The sight of the ‘Stornoway’ there had caused the Duchess of Devonshire to stare fixedly at her and say, “Oh my dear niece— yes; yes, I know he man for you; I shall choose better for you than I chose for myself.”

  
She had then whispered something to Marjorie’s mother, who nodded; and then both women had looked pleased and Marjorie had been allowed to put on grandmama’s sapphires.

  
Though Marjorie knew what they were about, she feigned ignorance. The day her mark had appeared, she had combed through Debrett's _Peerage_ for any possible Stornoway. She well aware that the viscount Stornoway existed, and that he was heir to the Earl of Matlock; and by virtue of her parents and his parents being two of the most prominent Whig families, she knew he was two years her senior, an undistinguished graduate of Cambridge, nowhere near as brilliant or even as promising a politician as his father and the sort of person Marjorie's grandmother, the Dowager Countess Spencer described by pausing and saying, “We all have different gifts.” Marjorie had never seen the viscount Stornoway, for his parents had begun to bring him to Spencer House in that awkward gap between when she was on display as a child, and Out as a debutante, and her parents always, carefully referred to Lord Stornoway as ‘the Earl of Matlock’s heir,’ or ‘Julian,’ while exchanging significant glances. From that alone Marjorie knew how her parents saw her, or wished to see her— theirs was a Rousseauan vision, of their pretty and pretty-mannered daughter meeting a young man, almost as blank slates, and falling for him for himself alone. They wanted her to be surprised by joy.

  
Marjorie hated surprises and had the sort of cleverness blended with cynicism (and sense of self-preservation that comes from having older, more powerful siblings) that meant she was not often surprised. She was a prominent, Whiggish Earl’s daughter; this Lord Stornoway was a prominent, Whiggish Earl’s son. Society told her this was a match. She privately doubted, but was prepared already to think of herself as Lady Stornoway. It was what was expected. She would not be surprised by anything in meeting him.

  
“Wait here,” said the Duchess, putting Marjorie in a chair. “Right by Lady Anne Darcy. Her brother is the Earl of Matlock. Yes. Have a glass of.. oh I always forget there is only lemonade. Well here. Have a glass. What can be taking Lavinia so long? I must go find your mother.”

  
Marjorie gracefully did as bid— as she always did— and after finishing her lemonade, sought out her own reflection for company. There was a mirror diagonally from her; she caught a glimpse of herself, and thought that the sapphires might have been too bold a choice. She loved them, loved how she looked in them, loved the weight of them and the dark sparkle of them at her left wrist, but they made her look possibly too sophisticated, too much as if she knew this world and it’s rules. Marjorie knew how she ought to act in almost any social situation, which caused people to call her well-behaved, but knew better still how to act as if these ideas had come to her naturally, rather than as the result of study, which caused people to call her charming. To look too intelligent would be fatal. Marjorie strained to hear the conversation Lady Anne was having with some other matron, hoping for reassurance that she was the dewy innocent a Lady Marjorie Spencer was required to be.

  
“—do not know where Christabel has got to, for she made me promise to let her know as soon as Gee got here with her niece, and I have just seen Gee walk past us again! This time without Lady Marjorie Spencer.”

  
“Another Spencer,” said a woman Marjorie thought might be Lady Catherine de Bourgh. “The Bible is always on the table, and the cards are always in the drawer, as they say of the Spencers. They are all gamblers. Look at what the Duchess of Devonshire is getting into these days. I understand why Matlock is always working with them, but why Christabel wishes to cultivate another Spencer daughter when their matches always turn out so oddly—“

  
Marjorie watched the feathers quiver Lady Anne’s headdress, in the mirror. “Oh come now, Lavina is lovely. I’m sure her daughter takes after her, rather than the Spencer side—”

  
“That’s hardly better! Do you know Lavinia personally, or only seen her at brother’s gatherings? Her father as only an Irish Earl, and her mother a miniature painter. Lady Lavinia married Lord Althrop—“ this being the courtesy title given to the heir to the Earldom of Spencer; the title Marjorie’s father had held until he had inherited the Earldom “—without any dowry at all! Is that evidence of a True Match, or of conniving?”

  
“I have been in committees with her; Christabel knows her better. I know her to be a very clever, pleasant sort of woman who gets people to get along. But Catherine, do reflect that Julian is... well, Julian is not....”

  
“I do not forget that Hubert dropped him on the head as a child.”

  
Marjorie mentally flicked back to the Fitzwilliam section of Debrett’s, which she was in a fair way to knowing by heart. ‘Seventh and current Earl— Hubert St. Laurent Fitzwilliam,’ rose to her mind’s eye.

  
“Yes! No. That is— Julian is the sort who might need a Spencer. George always says Julian tries so hard to do and say the right thing, but he is... limited. He’s always painfully grateful to anyone who points him in the right direction.”

  
This was promising.

  
“Look, here’s Christabel— oh with Julian. Good!”

  
Marjorie’s mother and aunt came over as well and retrieved her, talking brightly and happily about how she must remember Lady Matlock, surely Lady Matlock remembered their little Marjorie— the slim young man standing next to Lady Matlock whipped about like a dog suddenly realizing it had been given a command— and Lady Matlock cried warmly, “Oh yes! Lady Marjorie, you were such a petty child— and you have become such a beautiful young lady! And so accomplished I hear. Your Mama was telling me you had just finished school, at Bath. Did you have a favorite subject there?”

  
Marjorie thought of lying and saying ‘music’ or ‘needlework’ but caught a glance of Lord Stornoway in the large mirror to their right. He was not spectacularly good-looking, but he was handsome enough, and dressed well; his air was strangely hesitant for the heir to an Earldom, and his expression, from the side, a little searching and uncertain. Marjorie recalled Socrates declaring through some intermediary or other that we loved most that which we lacked in ourselves and gave the honest answer: “Geography and philosophy, Your Ladyship.”

  
“Indeed? Those seem like very diverse subjects.”

  
“I am interested in learning how the world is and how it may be,” said Lady Marjorie, which was true, though her air of wide-eyed innocence was faked. “Having been so fortunate as to grow up in a political household, I know it is our duty to shape the world into what we know it can be; I should always like to know how to best help in that endeavor.”

  
“I am not sure you know my eldest son,” said Lady Matlock, as if to reward Marjorie for this, and gestured gracefully to her right.

  
All the women were staring at her with anticipation. Marjorie knew that she had ceased to be Lady Marjorie Spencer to them, whose favorite color was blue, and who hated the country, and adored sweet desert wines and abhorred champagne—an individual with thoughts, feelings, and preferences of her own— and the archetype of Debutante. She was all of them as they once had been, or had once longed to be. Her high-waisted muslin gown was the blank slate upon which they projected their fantasies. Marjorie played her part to perfection.

  
She curtsied, with demurely downcast eyes, and then slowly raised them to Lord Stornoway’s face. There she paused, as if struck. Marjorie was not sure if she believed in phrenology, but searched his face and figure nonetheless for any tells of character or habit. She found nothing objectionable in the pleasant, if somewhat characterless face, or the dark hair he wore short and unpowdered. The slim, upright figure, rightly and nicely attired, was a relief; so to was the expression with which Lord Stornoway regarded her, as if he had seen a star fall to earth and was still dazzled by it.

  
“How— how d’ye do, Lady Marjorie?” he said, hesitantly.

  
“I am very well, I thank you, Lord...?”

  
“Oh, ah, Stornoway,” he said, then anxiously added, “I mean, that is— I am Julian Fitzwilliam, viscount Stornoway. At— very much at your service, Lady Marjorie.”

  
She had seen an automaton once, of a silver swan bending its neck more gracefully than in nature; she unfurled her left hand and extended it to him with the same sort of grace, that comes through mastery instead of instinct. Lord Stornoway responded instinctively to it, however; bowing deeply and kissing the back of her gloved hand with a reverence that bordered on submission. Something in her thrilled at this, at how quickly and easily she gained command over him, however temporarily she had done so.

  
“May I have the honor of the next with you, Lady Marjorie?” he asked, still bowed over her hand. “If you are not engaged, that is?”

  
“I am not engaged, your lordship,” she murmured, and allowed him to lead her to the dance. He was, unfortunately, not a spectacularly good dancer; indeed, he reminded Marjorie so much of a friend of hers from school, who often was forced to dance the men’s parts due to her height, that Marjorie muttered the next steps to Lord Stornoway when the dance reunited them once more. She was afraid he would be offended by this, but he then looked to her expectantly for the rest of the measure, and whispered his sincere thanks. Marjorie kept this up for the first turn of the dance, and then began to carefully find out what she could. She did not think there was a great deal to find out, for on the palate of life, Lord Stornoway was made up entirely primary colors. He was not bright but he was honest and eager-to-please, with an open manner and countenance, who liked all the pastimes he was supposed to, loved all his family with confused devotion, and believed nearly everything anyone told him. At least, thought Marjorie, Lord Stornoway was aware he was a limited person, and anxious about it. She felt a sort of fond pity for him, as she felt for dogs who went chasing after balls their owners had only pretended to throw. By the end of their dance, this had taken on an almost proprietary quality, since he turned to her with looks of mute appeal whenever he did not know something— be it the next step of the dance, a word, or a bill he had been attempting to study all week without success.

  
‘Poor thing,’ she thought, as Lord Stornoway shyly took her hand again. ‘He really wants management doesn’t he? It would really be the kind thing of me to take him on before someone cruel or unscrupulous takes advantage of him.’

  
“Zounds, Your Ladyship,” said Lord Stornoway, looking at her hand, “you have the prettiest little hands—though really, you’re quite the prettiest woman I’ve ever met. I shouldn’t have been surprised.”

  
Marjorie smiled. “You are very kind, Lord Stornoway.”

  
“Honest,” he corrected, looking at her with obvious admiration. “I think you must be the most beautiful woman at Almack’s—this evening certainly.” Then catching that this might not be taken as a compliment, hastily added, “No, this Season! Possibly ever.” Then, with look that made her blush, “ _Certainly_ ever.”

  
Though the introduction of a Scottish Captain Stornoway the next day shook her resolve, at the end of the evening, Marjorie reflected, ‘I could certainly work with this.’

 


	13. A Coda to ‘That Looks on Tempests’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an anon requested on tumblr: “Would you consider writing something little about Darcy and Eliza Williams? Kind of love the idea of them both moving on from past mistakes/disappointments (and him not just accepting but understanding and being moved by and not at all deterred by her past) and loving each other”
> 
> So here it is! Please note that though the rest of these outtakes can work within any of the three universes, this one is strictly a continuation of “That Looks on Tempests.”

It was only in house parties such as this that Darcy realized how much Elizabeth and Richard talked. They seemed to be almost always talking— with each other, with their daughter, with other guests— and enjoyed their lives of bustle and noise. Even now, when only Darcy, Miss Williams, Richard, and Elizabeth were still awake after supper, they were talking spiritedly of the houseparty they had attended before coming up north.  
  
“I know Wellington had to have _someplace_ but I wish he had purchased a better house than Stratford-Straye,” said Elizabeth, sewing two strips of white ribbon across the torso of her daughter’s punch-stained ragdoll. “I never have a comfortable visit.”  
  
“I imagine it is always full of guests, and that must be very tiring,” said Miss Williams, a sentiment which Darcy mentally agreed with.  
  
Elizabeth laughed. “I rather like a large house party. Indeed, the company was not bad— I met Sir Walter Scott this time round, and got him to sign a copy of _Marmion_  for Mrs. Brandon. She was so moved she nearly fainted when I gave it to her earlier today. It is only that the house is so cold and so big the Duchess cannot manage it. Lady Wellington cannot manage her guests, either, so I was obliged to shift for her. What the Duchess will do when I am in Brazil and Mrs. Arbuthnot is in London I cannot tell you. Her friends are not of much help to her. Darcy, do you know Mrs. Willoughby?”  
  
“I do not have that pleasure, no.”  
  
“It’s hardly a pleasure,” said Elizabeth, dryly. “I’m not sure whose company I found more trying, hers or her husband. Mrs. Willoughby is maddeningly jealous, but it isn’t entirely her fault, poor woman. Mr. Willoughby is a chancer.”  
  
“A what?” Darcy asked blankly.  
  
Elizabeth glanced at her husband, who explained, “The sort of rake who just tries his luck on every woman who comes within his orbit. I doubt he’s even attracted to half of the women he lays out lures for; it’s as much a matter of sport for him as hunting rabbits. I can’t stand the fellow myself.”  
  
“It seems like a dog barking after a coach to me, most of the time,” said Elizabeth. “What on earth would he do if someone was foolish enough to give into his importunings? Do you think he might actually convince some woman to run away with him, Richard?”  
  
“I pity the woman if so,” said Richard. “I can’t imagine he’d make anyone a very pleasant lover. Dearest, what are you doing with that ribbon? I thought you were turning Dolly there into a mummy.”  
  
“No, they’re cross-belts!” She tied off her embroidery thread and held it up for her husband’s inspections. “There. Lieutenant Dolly reports for duty. Do you think Victoria Jane will now forgive her cousin Laurie for dropping her doll in the punchbowl?”  
  
“A very charming redcoat,” said Richard, taking it. “Tie back the hair and I could have sworn I met Lieutenant Dolly in India.”  
  
“Were you ever in India, Miss Williams?” Elizabeth asked politely.  
  
“No, I was at school then,” said Miss Williams.

She looked pale and unhappy; Elizabeth started and said, “Are you well, Miss Williams?”  
  
“Oh– oh yes,” said Miss Williams, stiffly. “Quite well, only– only a little tired. I beg you will excuse me.”  
  
She left somewhat abruptly; Elizabeth looked to the gentlemen and asked, uncertainly, “I did not offend her by speaking as I did, I hope? I am recalling that Mr. Willoughby’s aunt is Colonel Brandon’s neighbor. I hope he is not a friend of her uncle’s, and I have grievously upset her by giving my opinion so decidedly.”  
  
Darcy tried to recall what had caused Miss Williams to turn pale and flee, but could not think of any other reason, except that Elizabeth’s poor opinion of the Willoughbys had somehow upset her. Elizabeth was immediately sorry and inclined to go after Miss Williams to apologize, but Darcy and Richard, who knew Miss Williams better, persuaded her to wait until morning, when Miss Williams would be a little more composed. Having to accept an apology now would only agitate her further.  
  
Though the Fitzwilliams retired to bed, Darcy was still restless. He decided to go to the library and pick out a book; and was not surprised to see that Miss Williams had taken refuge here, and was hiding in a volume of Cowper.  
  
She did not notice him at first; then she raised her dark eyes with an inquiring look.  
  
Darcy liked her quietness. He appreciated that she merely looked instead of breaking the comfortable silence. There was a restfulness to Miss Williams’s company. Darcy often thought that Miss Williams was the only person, Georgianna excepted, who not only valued moments of stillness as much as he did, but needed them as much. It was a rare quality to find in a person.  
  
“Forgive me,” said Darcy. “I did not mean to intrude upon your solitude; I meant only to find a book myself.”  
  
She nodded and Darcy searched the shelves before saying, a little more formally than he intended to, “By the by, Mrs. Fitzwilliam did not mean to offend, when she spoke as she did, and is desirous of personally offering you an apology.” He glanced towards her; Miss Williams held herself very still. “Mrs. Fitzwilliam is a very high-spirited woman; she speaks more to amuse than injure, and was very sorry to have spoke ill of a friend of your family.”  
  
“Mr. Willoughby is not in the least a friend of our family,” said Miss Williams, in a low, trembling voice. There was a strange vehemence to her tone; Darcy found himself staring at her.  
  
Miss Williams was the sort of person with whom he could comfortably share a silence, so  he was not surprised to find that, like him, there was a great depth of feeling behind her reserve; and fancied that she too had trouble fitting all she felt into words.  
  
She shut her book and squeezed her eyes shut. “Mr. Darcy, I think I… I ought to explain a little, the history of Mr. Willoughby’s interactions with my family.”  
  
He was not expecting that. Darcy blinked and took a seat by Miss Williams, saying, “If you wish to tell me, I have no objection, but I would not and will not press you.”  
  
“You are all goodness, sir,” said Miss Williams, looking very pale, and staring at her book. “I– I must ask that whatever I say remain in confidence.”  
  
“Yes, of course.”  
  
“And I understand if, hearing what I have said, you wish to no longer speak to me, or have me in your home; but I beg you will allow me to give the excuse that I am feeling too poorly to remain, and ask that the Brandons take me back to Delaford, rather than your asking them to take me away. I do not wish to cause my guardian any more grief than I have already.”  
  
“I am sure that you cannot say anything to me that would cause me to do so,” said Darcy.  
  
“I should–” She exhaled slowly. “I have hidden the truth too long. But it is not something that can be spoken of to everybody. Well. Here it is. When I was fifteen, sir, before my mark came in– Mr. Willoughby– he tried to convince me I was his match. I was the sort of foolish woman Mrs. Fitzwilliam described, taken in by his– his chancing. His importunings. I ought to have known, I ought to have realized–” She was trembling, like a string pulled too taut, from bearing too much weight. “I turned sixteen when he had got me in the coach to go away with him. I saw the– well, I saw on my wrist definitive proof he was not my soulmate. I got out as soon as I could, but I did not know where I was, and had not enough money to return to my friends. I took the stagecoach as far as I could back to Dorsetshire, where I had been at school.” Darcy was alarmed and moved to see she was crying; her voice trembled and said, “I– I wrote to Colonel Brandon as soon as I could, but he did not respond and I thought– he was well within his rights to cast me out, after how shamefully I had behaved. I left before Mr. Willoughby achieved his aims, but my reputation was ruined. I had left the house of my friends and put myself into his protection. Removing myself from his protection merely left me alone. It was quite some time before I risked sending Colonel Brandon a second letter. He came then, and by that time– by that time Mr. Willoughby was courting Marianne. That is– the lady that is currently Mrs. Brandon. Mr. Willoughby abandoned her as well, though Marianne had the good sense not to go off with him, or at least had the good fortune of having a living mother who made sure Mr. Willoughby’s overtures were of the respectable kind. It did not stop Mr. Willoughby from breaking her heart. She went into a very severe decline from such an upset. I think she is now very happy but I have often heard from her mother and sisters that her spirits are not as high as they once were. I would be glad to hear Mrs. Fitzwilliam speak poorly of him again! He deserves it. I only–” She swallowed and said in a painful, cracked voice, “I only feel how foolish I was to believe him, when he said that he loved me. He was– he was chancing, as I think Mrs. Fitzwilliam called it. And I was stupid enough to fall for it.”  
  
Darcy was shocked, and could only think to say, “Something very similar nearly happened to Georgianna.”  
  
Miss Williams was moved instantly to compassion. “Poor Miss Darcy! She was fifteen as well?”  
  
“Yes. I happened to surprise her with a sudden visit. Georgianna disclosed the whole to me; I stopped the elopement before it had begun. But Miss Williams–” he leaned towards her, feeling anxious over her. “You do not blame yourself, I hope? Having been respectably brought up, never having any experience of men– how could you have known he was lying to you?”  
  
“You do not blame me?” asked Miss Williams, much astonished.  
  
This in turn, astonished Darcy. “For the actions of a man of decidedly ill character? Of course not. And as soon as you realized your error, did you not immediately leave him?” He considered this story as impartially as he could and said, “Miss Williams, I cannot understand how you thought I would ask you to quit Pemberly. Your story is more illustrative of the strength of your character, rather than your weakness.”  
  
Miss Williams stared at him. It occurred to Darcy that Miss Williams was a very lovely woman. Her beauty came not from liveliness but stillness, her grace not from command of movement but from struggle overcome and mastered. There was more to admire than he had previously suspected.  
  
“You are unique among men, sir,” said Miss Williams, staring at him in wonder. “I think you might be one of the few truly good men I have ever known.”  
  
“I am sorry that is the case,” he said gravely.  
  
“And you are,” she said, wonderingly.  
  
They fell into silence once more; but it seemed to Darcy as if there was something filling it, something charged and changing. He could not seem to look away from Miss Williams, nor she from him. It occurred to Darcy that he could say something, could break whatever was building up so delicately– but he did not want to. They had both been somewhat battered by life– indeed, he thought if he explained how he had tried to force romance with Elizabeth Elliot, and then the following misery of his unrequited passion for Elizabeth Bennet Fitzwilliam before her, Miss Williams would instantly understand– they had both been so desirous, so eager to believe they had found their soulmates, they had merely caused themselves pain by rushing into situations they ought to have avoided.  
  
Tentatively, unsure how this overture would be welcomed, Darcy put his hand on the endtable that separated them, resting it by hers. Miss Williams moved her hand a little, so that they were lightly touching. The quiet between them was a comforting thing; and in its stillness, they were happy to take refuge.


	14. In which there is a lot of Vera Lynn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An anon on tumblr asked, “could you do a take on the soulmark au in any other period other than our own and the regency era?” I hope you like WWII, anon!

Late spring, 1944.

  
Elizabeth and her husband rushed from Whitehall to the club they had made a literal deathbed promise to go to (the younger sister of a dead lieutenant in Colonel Fitzwilliam’s regiment was making her debut there).

  
Elizabeth slid decorously into the Jeep, every inch the proper colonel’s wife; then, as soon as the key was in the ignition, she gunned it. They peeled away from Whitehall with a loud squeal of tires.

  
“I’m sure,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, clutching his hat with one hand and the dashboard with the other, “that fellow in the Bentley you just passed was demanding, in very coarse language, where you learned to drive.”

  
“North Africa, in an ambulance, with the Luftwaffe bombing me,” Elizabeth said, brightly.

  
“No passenger of yours is going to die if you slow down now,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “Possibly the opposite, my dear— the bicyclist!”

  
“I see him,” Elizabeth replied, deftly avoiding him. In deference to her husband’s delicate sensibilities, however, she switched gears and drove marginally slower.

  
He made a production of slumping down into his seat.

  
Elizabeth laughed. “Well, darling, if you hate the way we FANYs drive, you ought to have told MTS or ATS to get you a replacement driver while you were in London, instead of relying on your poor wife.”

  
Colonel Fitzwilliam looked at her with a smile. “I kid, Lizzy, I kid. I know we wouldn’t have made it out of El Alamein without your particular style of driving. When later biographers ask me how I survived the North African campaign, I shall say, by the sharp left turn my wife made, in what I at first thought was the sudden desire to go off-roading. Besides,” he added, now feeling secure enough to release the dashboard, “since the Greeks it’s been known the best battalions are made up of lovers. I can’t imagine a battle much worse than braving London traffic at rush hour, when half the city still needs to be rebuilt.”

  
“I wonder if they've ever done studies on that,” Elizabeth mused, neatly avoiding a large hole in the road, and the debris of a flattened series of flats. “Anything you can share with me from the meeting?”

  
“Anything you picked up from the other drivers or the steno pool?”

  
“There’s going to be a big push with the Americans, but where? Everyone heard a different location.”

  
“Always nice to hear the SOE is doing its work properly.”

  
A local bobbie was directing traffic around an overturned truck and about to stop them; Elizabeth narrowly made the cut off and sunnily called out her thanks. This allowed them to pull up to the club about five minutes after their reservation.

  
“Do you think they’ll let us in, Richard?” Elizabeth asked, as she watched a series of very glamorous women in trailing evening gowns, lush furs, and beautifully frivolous hats walking through the doors. “That is—I’m sure they’ll let you in, but—”

  
“If they’ll respect my uniform, they’d better respect yours,” he replied, running a hand through his hair before putting his hat back on. Then, seeing her drum her fingers on the wheel, he leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Ten to one you’re the only woman who walks in with actual silk stockings.”

  
“True enough.” Elizabeth had joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry over the Motor Transport Corps, the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, or the Women’s Royal Naval Service jointly because it seemed to her the likeliest way to be posted with her husband, while still feeling like she had a life and job that did not wholly center on him. When asked, she always joked that it was because of the uniform. Members of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry were given silk stockings with their big leather belts, their peaked leather-strapped caps, and their greenish khaki skirts and bush jackets (as well as leather briefcases Elizabeth liked much more than the sling purse she’d carried in civilian life). Elizabeth’s sisters or sisters-in-laws hadn’t even seen silk stockings since ‘39.

  
Colonel Fitzwilliam turned out to be right. Their uniforms supplied them not only their entree into the club, but a bewildering degree of deference and a number of free drinks.

  
“Just imagine if I’d gone into the RAF, instead of the infantry,” Colonel Fitzwilliam joked, raising his glass at a middle aged couple very drunk on synthetic beer, who had sent Colonel Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth two pink gins. “We’d never pay for anything again.”

  
Elizabeth, touching up her lipstick (“Fighting Red!” the advertisements had exclaimed enthusiastically, for even beauty had to be part of the war effort these days), said, “I’m glad you weren’t, darling.” Then, as this might be taken for an unpatriotic comment about the high death rate in the RAF, she said, “Imagine the nickname you’d have! I can’t imagine thinking you my soulmate when all your intimates called you ‘Squiffy’ or something.”

  
“‘Fitzdick’ would have been a definite possibility,” he admited. “‘Fifi’ can’t be ruled out either. And,” he added, picking up her free hand where it rested on the table, and kissing the back of it, “there is the fact that if I hadn’t been injured at Dunkirk we might never have met.”

  
Elizabeth colored and smiled at him. She sometimes forgot how young they still were, how comparatively newlywed they were. Of course, they’d rushed a bit into marriage, but so had everyone in their generation. Though was it really rushing when they were a match? Elizabeth finished touching up her lipstick and capped it one-handed, before sliding her fingertips under her husband’s sleeve. She had no need to see the ‘Bennet’ on his wrist to know it was there.

  
“Oh it is them!” someone exclaimed, and Georgiana came bounding over, her elder brother in tow.

  
Elizabeth was disappointed, for she had been hoping for an evening alone with her husband. Even though she had abandoned the fantasy of casually dropping her fox fur at the coat check to glide around the dance floor in a draping, bias-cut silk gown with a long train, she had still stubbornly clung to the hope that the two of them might spend all evening dancing together. The course of their courtship and the early days of their marriage had included nights out dancing while gorgeously attired, but they’d been sent to North Africa in the fall of ‘41, for Operation Crusader. The opportunities for dancing were scarce, and less romantic affairs with live orchestras, and more along the lines of the officers putting a record on the gramophone and Colonel Fitzwilliam bolstering the esprit de corps by spinning his wife around the mess.

  
She was still in her twenties, Elizabeth thought grumpily. It was hardly unnatural to want a date with her husband. Nor, she thought, even more grouchily, was it unnatural to want to avoid spending a whole evening with Darcy. She liked Darcy better now than she ever had before, and would not object to being his partner at dinner or in a game of tennis, but in those situations there was the comfort of a hypothetical group to turn to, should she run out of patience or things to say. He was such a high stickler she was often impertinent with him; and though she had only offended him to the point of horrific argument once, when he had assumed she was a mercenary sinking her claws into a vulnerable family member and she had assumed he was the most conceited, unfeeling snob to walk England’s green and pleasant land, it had been so bad and caused such fall-out she did not wish it to happen again.

  
Colonel Fitzwilliam had of course risen at once and warmly greeted each Darcy. This was enough to make Elizabeth feel guilty, and guilt took her towards the good manners that bolstered her through all of life’s challenges. She rose and kissed the air above Georgiana’s cheeks and shook Darcy’s hand. She could not bring herself to ask them to join their table and mentally abused herself for her selfishness; after all, she’d seen her husband every day since they’d been deployed, and the Darcys had only seen him since he’d been brought back from North Africa to help with some hush-hush mission being plotted at Whitehall— but Georgiana asked brightly, “Are you here for Miss Grantley? She is a dear friend of mine. Do you not like this club? May we sit with you?”

  
“What question shall I answer first, Georgiana?” Colonel Fitzwilliam asked, laughing. “But yes, please join us. Though I do warn you I shall have to abandon you both at least twice. Miss Grantley’s brother was a lieutenant of mine who died only this March, and I fancy Mr. and Mrs. Grantley might wish to speak with me on that subject.”

  
Darcy had courteously drawn out a chair for Georgiana; she slid into it and asked, “And the second?”

  
“I must dance at least once with Lizzy,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said. “The thought of it was all that got me through my meetings today.”

  
Elizabeth’s disappointment lessened and she felt a sudden rush of heady affection. The similarities of their characters so often led to the same desires. She felt cheerfully bolstered by this knowledge, and by the sudden idea that Colonel Fitzwiliam’s invitation to the Darcys was the result of the high value he also placed on graciousness and courtesy, not because he did not long for an evening alone with her as much as she longed for one with him. “Only one dance? Colonel, I should feel myself cast out of your affection if we did not dance at least two.”

  
“I can’t have that! I might have to request the favor of three dances, just to prove to you that love has not died.”

  
Georgiana laughed at them, and Darcy looked as he habitually did in company: as if he’d rather be anywhere else.

  
The meal was fairly decent, for the chef had learnt how to combine what few resources were available to him into substances that actually resembled food, and there were cocktails enough to put Elizabeth into a forgiving mood anyhow. She was kind to Darcy and asked after his farms and cows and mines— subjects he was always glad to converse on, for he preferred conversation that had to do with the specific and the individual, over the general, and he always grew happy and animated when talking about Pemberley. Elizabeth complimented Georgiana on her gown of floating pink chiffon and asked after her studies, while being privately a little bewildered that civilized music courses at London conservatories could carry on when Elizabeth’s own daily life was full of transience and chaos and bombings and bleeding.

  
By the end of the dinner (and two pink gins and a sidecar) Elizabeth could speak entertainingly and with spirit, giving all her best anecdotes from campaign. That Time She’d Nearly Run Into A Camel was received well (Darcy even smiled); That Time She Chased Off a Platoon Of Axis Infantry By Threatening to Drive Her Ambulance into a Munitions Depot was less of a hit. Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed, for it was one of his favorite stories, and it always had the mess or the drivers’ pool in whoops, but Darcy looked grave and Georgiana was equal parts fascinated and bewildered, for it was clear she had never heard of anything like Elizabeth’s experiences abroad. Indeed, Georgiana only ventured a timid remark that she thought very few women could do what Elizabeth was doing.

  
“Only several hundred thousand others,” protested Elizabeth. “There’s more women on campaign than you think. Why, I’m not even my husband’s official driver! I’m just filling in while he’s in London. Richard had a real driver from the MTS, but she was left behind in Egypt, to help drive some American colonels up the coast of Italy, and I got her spot in the aeroplane only by promising General Wellesley I’d make sure Richard got to all his meetings successfully. Really, I am surrounded by women. Aside from some Quakers, and the doctors, of course, there are hardly any men about who are conscious, or conscious for long, in the ambulances. And a much more famous Elizabeth’s a mechanic. Princess Elizabeth’s a Junior Commander, last I heard.”

  
“It is uncommon in our circles,” said Georgiana.

  
“Well no—Marjorie’s friend, Miss Anne Elliot—she went for a WREN, didn’t she?”

  
“I can’t think of anyone else.”

  
Elizabeth took out a cigarette case from one of the tunic pockets of her uniform coat and sorted through it, trying to organize her thoughts. “Oh. Well… my sisters would all be land girls, if they were helping out anywhere but home— except for Jane of course, who’s helping with Charles’s factories up north. All cloth for uniforms and parachutes now. And Marjorie’s doing her hush-hush work for the SOE.”

  
“Yes, but they’re all here.”

  
Elizabeth teased her, “And I suppose I am a mere phantasmagoria, a figment of your imagination brought on by drinking too much ssynthetic beer.”

  
Georgiana blushed. “You—you know what I mean. You’ve seen combat and all, as part of FANY.”

  
“That’s true enough, though generally I am driving very quickly away from combat,” she replied, smilingly. She carefully did not mention the more delicate aspects of combat she had seen, the SOE work Marjorie had steered her way, of driving to meet agents, or driving them to rendezvous, for, in truth, Elizabeth found it much more boring than she’d been led to believe it would be. Espionage was mostly waiting about and not saying things. It was deadly dull. She often brought her knitting with her.

  
Colonel Fitzwilliam and Darcy were talking grimly and quietly about the rumors going about that the Nazis tattooed over people’s soul marks with numbers as soon as they arrived at the concentration camps. Elizabeth said she didn’t want to believe it for it seemed so horrible a violation, but Colonel Fitzwilliam said, “I wish I could, but I cannot doubt it. A—a very good friend of mine, a surgeon named Pascal— he’s Jewish and told me that during the Inquisition the Spanish inquisitors would demand to see your mark since it referred to your saint’s name. If you didn’t have a saint’s name, you were clearly an infidel. There is a legacy of repressive states using ones mark against one— replacing it with something more palatable to the state it is just the newest atrocity visited upon a hated minority. Pascal is in a position to know better than most. He was in the South of France visiting family when the Nazis first invaded, and was stopped at the border when he tried to run. His parents were a match, and his mother’s mark was a very obviously Jewish name, when his father’s could pass for Christian. They saw the Germans pulling up people’s sleeves at the border into Spain and had to hide his mother in the boot of their car.”

  
“A… good friend?” Darcy asked cautiously. “How did he escape if he was..?”

  
“Pascal credited his getting out to the fact that his fake papers were American and he convinced the German officers that his soulmark was the last name of a girl he was engaged to in New Orleans.”

  
“Do the Americans also think a soulmark refers to the person you must marry?” Georgiana asked.

  
“I don’t think you could find two Americans who could agree on anything except that you, a foreigner, must be in the wrong,” quipped Elizabeth, finally selecting and lighting a cigarette. She’d been too caught up in the story to do so before. “Some of them must, though. It’s in their films all the time, the star-crossed but soul marked lovers. Though I suppose a lot of the time he manufactured drama is that one person’s family doesn’t have the same interpretation of marks as the other does….”

  
“I know the Nazis view soulmarks in the light of eugenics,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, his expression tight. “Breeding purposes, to make a superior Aryan race. God help you if your mark doesn’t match up with a good German or Italian or Japanese family. And God forbid you have a man’s name. It’s the camps for re-education and the hopes you’ve got a last name or a nickname, or death, as you’re of no use to Nazi society. And this when Berlin, back in the early 30s….”

  
He trailed off. Elizabeth knew Colonel Fitzwilliam had spent at least some of his time in Berlin, during his early career, where all sorts of sexual identities and preferences were very freely expressed. His bisexuality had never been a secret to her, nor a source of any alarm, but given the Nazi crackdown, and the unhappy fact that England had its own share of fascists and fans of eugenics she well understood why he was not precisely open about his preferences.

  
“Will you finish this for me darling?” Elizabeth transferred her lit cigarette from her lips to his. There was a bright red ring of lipstick about the filter; Elizabeth had the feeling of subtly bestowing a kiss. Colonel Fitzwilliam received it in the same spirit and looked at her with affection.

  
“Are you still enjoying being part of FANY, Mrs. Fitzwilliam?” Darcy asked hastily. “I believe they did much good in the Great War, in terms of first aid.”

  
“Yes, and thank God they’re not sending us about on horseback like they did then,” said Elizabeth, laughing. “Could you imagine? I disgraced myself so thoroughly that one time Matlock insisted I come with everyone to the Quorn.”

“You find driving cars easier?” Darcy asked, rather surprised.

  
“Oh, much! If a car misbehaves, you can take it to pieces to make it work again. You cannot do so with a horse—well, you certainly could, but I wouldn’t give you good odds on making the horse work again afterwards.”

  
Colonel Fitzwilliam choked on a mouthful of smoke. Voice unsteady with laughter he agreed, “No, that is— that is very true, my dear.”

  
“Though you are right to be surprised, Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth said, trying to be charitable. “I had next to nothing to do with cars in civilian life, unless the chauffeur was taking me someplace, or I was in London and needed a taxi. But I was always all over mud as a child. Being all over engine oil feels a natural evolutionary progression.”

  
The main act was then announced, and they all turned to the stage. The singer, whose name Elizabeth had been sure of before the third cocktail, was nervous at first, half-whispering her way through a Cole Porter song that really ought to have been belted, but then again, she was a classically-trained singer who had rebelliously gone into jazz. It had been so unusual and troubling a decision Colonel Fitzwilliam’s lieutenant had been fixated on it even after an Italian shell had taken away part of his skull. Only Colonel Fitzwilliam’s promising all would be well, and that if the lieutenant wouldn’t see his sister singing before a live audience, he would, allowed the poor man to die in some peace. Colonel Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth clapped and cheered with more enthusiasm than propriety, causing the Darcys to as well. This caused such a storm of adulation the singer grew confident and cheerful, and the opening strains of Gershwin’s “Liza” sounded much more like they ought, bright and jovial.

“Liza, Liza, skies are gray,” the singer exclaimed, with building confidence, “but if you smile on me, all the clouds will roll away.”

  
“Excuse us,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, standing and offering Elizabeth his hand. “Mrs. Fitzwilliam, this dance literally has your name on it. Smile on me and stand up with me, will you?”

  
Colonel Fitzwilliam was a very good dancer, and though the two of them knew it would be folly for Colonel Fitzwilliam to try and flip Elizabeth about his shoulders or fling her up towards the ceiling, as the Americans on the floor were doing, each time they gathered up enough courage to do something flashy, they did not disgrace themselves. Elizabeth felt brilliantly and uncomplicated happy as she spun about, and then into the safety of her husband’s arms. The swing numbers  eventually gave way to a slower Gershwin standard, one about sheep lost in the woods.

  
Colonel Fitzwilliam seemed tempted to go back to the table. Elizabeth leaned her head against her husband’s shoulder, before he could release her right hand or slide his right hand down from her shoulders. He automatically held her tighter and, gave in like wet paper to her implicit request to dance cheek to cheek.

  
Elizabeth felt tired but elated. A vain, vague wish that this was how they normally spent their evenings, instead of in a tent, always with half-an-ear out for air raid sirens or the company trumpet, crept into her mind.

  
“I do so love you, my dear,” Colonel Fitzwilliam whispered into her victory rolls.

  
“Darling man,” she murmured. “I could dance with you forever.”

  
“Excuse me,” came an American voice.

  
Elizabeth looked up, surprised.

  
One of the American GIs that seemed to be all over London smiled at Elizabeth. “Mighty fine dancing there, Miss.”

  
“Thank you,” said Elizabeth, a bit surprised. “That’s very kind of you.”

  
He turned to Colonel Fitzwilliam. “Mind if I cut in, champ?”

  
“Yes, rather,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, though very politely, and pleasantly. “My apologies, Private, but officers take precedence.”

  
The American stuck his hands in his pockets and said, shrewdly, “Your wife know you’re out dancing with your driver, sir?”

  
Elizabeth was tempted to gasp and exclaim, ‘How could you?’ but before she could, Colonel Fitzwilliam dryly said, “Yes, for she is one and the same.”

  
Elizabeth held up her left hand, to better display her diamond and platinum wedding ring.

  
The American gave them a bashful grin and said, “Well! Can’t blame a fella for tryin’, can ya?” He ambled off.

  
Elizabeth bit her lips to keep from laughing. “I knew I’d get some smart remark on the uniform.”

  
Colonel Fitzwilliam shook his head. “No respect, these Americans. I never had this trouble with any of the Commonwealth soldiers in North Africa. The Americans give you any trouble there?”

  
“No, but then again, I usually only saw them when they were being loaded into my ambulance. They had more pressing concerns than causing me trouble.”

  
“I beg your pardon,” said a woman at the table nearest them, “but I can’t help but notice, sir, that your wife is an ambulance driver and you are a colonel and were in the North African campaign— unmannerly of me to interrupt you, I know, but I fancy you are the Colonel Fitzwilliam who sent me such a lovely note when my son died this March.”

  
Elizabeth felt Colonel Fitzwilliam stifle a sigh and then put on the expression and manner that usually served when he was comforting the grieving. “Yes. If you’d just allow me to take my wife back to our party, I should be glad to speak with you.”

  
The bold American had spirited off Georgiana, so there was only Darcy at the table.

  
“In difficulties unconquered,” Elizabeth muttered to herself, this being the motto of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. She always liked the security of a group, the comfort of a set society with agreed upon rules and standards of behavior. Elizabeth drank the dregs of her last pink gin and decided, to hell with it, she might as well dance all evening if she could. When was the next time she’d get to dance to the music of a live orchestra, especially with this push into Whitehall-alone-knew-where coming up? “Come, Darcy,” she said, holding out her left hand to him, as she set down the glass with her right. Her platinum identity bracelet (an expensive version of the ones issued to all members of the service; and a gift from Colonel Fitzwilliam before they shipped out in ‘41) flashed in the light. “I know you’re dying to keep an eye on Georgiana. You can do a better job of it on the dance floor.”

  
Darcy hesitated.

  
“It’s hardly swing,” Elizabeth said, amused. “Consider it in the light of public service. I’ve just come from North Africa after three years. You can’t deny so hardworking a defender of the nation a dance, can you?”

  
He took her hand.

  
Elizabeth was surprised to find that Darcy was not a bad dancer. He was stiff, but he had a surprisingly good sense of rhythm and he held her well— supportively, and closely, but never making her feel trapped.

  
They began to dance well after the orchestral introduction to Glenn Miller’s “I Know Why (And So Do You)” had ended. The singer, whose name Elizabeth had given up trying to remember, demanded to know why she always saw rainbows.

  
‘Because it rains so bloody much in England, duckie,’ Elizabeth thought, but did not say.

  
“Something amuses you, Mrs. Fitzwilliam?” Darcy asked, looking away from where Georgiana was solemnly and correctly dancing with her GI.

  
“Not really,” said Elizabeth, smiling up at him. “I was just thinking to myself— did you know, Mr. Darcy, that the first time we met, my mother said she hoped I would never dance with you?”

  
Darcy looked nonplussed. “Did we not first meet at a dance?”

  
“Yes, one of those dos to raise funds to buy tanks or something for the Hertfordshire militia.”

  
“I highly doubt it was to raise money for tanks.”

  
Elizabeth laughed. “No indeed, you have caught me out, Mr. Darcy. Our part of Hertfordshire was too far from London for the raids to be anything of more than prurient interest. I was sadly ignorant of military affairs before I married the colonel.”

  
This supplied Elizabeth with a subject of conversation: Colonel Fitzwilliam, and their shared family and friends. Elizabeth was unwillingly charmed to find that Darcy deeply loved many of the same people she did, and had the same opinions of them. Indeed, his opinion of Jenny Bingley, Jane and Charles Bingley’s child and their joint goddaughter, was almost as high as hers. He was equally inclined to think there had never been a more affectionate baby in the world and found her smiling so early an astonishing feat indicative of genius, but would not agree that Jenny was the more beautiful baby he had ever seen. As he reserved that honor for Georgiana, Elizabeth was inclined to forgive him.

  
Indeed, Elizabeth’s opinion of Darcy had never been higher. Even though he was such a high stickler, Darcy had said nothing about her uniform. He had even deigned to stand up and dance with her in it, despite the fact that no other woman in uniform was present and the fact that Darcy hated dancing.

  
The singer continued on in her litany of of agricultural impossibilities, which amused Elizabeth and made Mr. Darcy rather grumpy. Well, thought Elizabeth, the man had a right to be annoyed; with most of his workers drafted he was turned farmer himself up in Derbyshire. He of all people knew why it was impossible for violets to be growing, even though it was snowing.

  
“I know why, and so do you,” the singer insisted.

  
Elizabeth rolled her eyes—she always found this song rather treacely; she preferred a lyric with a bit of a bite to it— but when the orchestra switched over to Vera Lynn, tears rose to her eyes. She fixed her gaze firmly on Darcy’s shoulder as the singer, in a more serious tone, moved on from rainbows to sunny days, when they would all meet again.

  
“Don’t know where, don’t know when,” the singer admitted, “but I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day.”

  
“You’ll keep an eye on our goddaughter, won’t you?” asked Elizabeth, a little at random. She unfairly blamed the song for making her maudlin; for making her think of all the people she had desperately missed while in North Africa and tried to fly about seeing, before they were deployed elsewhere; for causing her to reflect more seriously on the fear that had inspired that frenetic round of visiting. “I… I don’t regret any of the choices I’ve made, but I….”

  
“Keep smiling through, just as you always do,” advised the singer.

  
Elizabeth thought this magnificent advice. She blinked back her tears and forced a smile, before turning to look up at Darcy. She was shocked to see the depth of concern in his expression.

  
“You have served and served with distinction,” said Darcy, quietly. “None would blame you if you were to remain in London.”

  
“Is London very safe these days?”

  
“Derbyshire,” he suggested. “You would be very welcome at Pemberley. You are always welcome at Pemberley.”

  
Elizabeth was startled and touched by this but said, “Darcy, that is very good of you, but I— it would be easy to refute that I am indispensable to the war effort, but I am vain enough to think I am needed where they send me. I do have my vanities, some more egregious than others, but in this— in this I cannot fault myself overmuch. If Jenny ever asks what I did while there was a war for human decency, I can happily say I was not idle; I did my part for old Blighty and drove ambulances in North Africa.” Then came the thought, ‘what if, because of this, Jenny never gets a chance to ask you? What if the Axis powers did successfully hit your ambulance, or the agent you were sent to pick up crosses you, or is found out, and you are killed?’ Elizabeth asked herself her usual question to keep the panic at bay: ‘and what if, while you are safe at home, your soulmate dies or the Allies lose? What then?’

  
“You speak so lightly of it,” said Darcy, “but I cannot help but think that in the moment of danger you cannot be so blithe.”

  
“There is such a thing as gallows humor, Darcy, and in that art, I have become a true proficient.” Then, because he was trying for her, she tried for him. “I suppose there is some psychological term for it— my father could tell you of it, in its original German— but I always find there is a moment when danger approaches where I must either give into fear or make a joke, and it is easier to keep going if one jokes.”

  
“Keep calm and carry on,” said Darcy, wryly.

  
“Keep smiling through,” Elizabeth sang along, with half the rest of the audience, and added, “I think, Darcy, you would understand when I say that even if I do not accomplish all I vainly think I can, I must try. Especially when so many people I love are in danger.”

  
Darcy stared down at her, almost searchingly and then said, “I understand.”

  
The band moved onto another Vera Lynn song, this one even more maudlin. “You’ll never know how much I’ll miss you,” the singer lamented. “You'll never know just how much I care….”

  
“Lizzy,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, coming up.

  
“Going to cut in?” asked Elizabeth. Then, seeing his expression said, “Orders come in?”

  
He scrounged up a smile for her. “I’ve had a phone call. I’m wanted back at Whitehall. The time is near, and I’m afraid we’ve only the one chance to get this right. I can get a taxi if you want to stay with Darcy—”

  
“I want to go with you,” said Elizabeth.

  
She stepped back and curtsied elegantly to Darcy, as if she were in a long-trained gown of bias-cut silk instead of her skirt and belted bush jacket of green khaki. “Thank you for the dance, Mr. Darcy. It was a pleasure.”

  
“The pleasure was all mine, Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”

  
“And if I tried, I still couldn't hide my love for you,” the singer admitted.

  
There was something strange in Darcy’s expression that Elizabeth did not quite understand until she realized that the Darcys did not know how dull most of her work was. They knew only the wounded sent back to England, the lists of the dead. Of their circles, only she and Richard left the safety of England—what limited safety there was—in this fight. Elizabeth was unexpectedly touched. She had always thought Darcy disliked her.

  
“God keep you, Richard,” said Darcy. “I wish….”

  
“God bless,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, with a tired smile. “As Vera Lynn says, please say hello to the folks we both know, in case Lizzy and I ship out before I see them all.”

  
“Mrs. Fitzwilliam,” said Darcy abruptly. “Elizabeth.”

  
“I speak your name in my every prayer,” the singer insisted. “If there is some other way to prove that I love you, I swear I don’t know how….”

  
Darcy struggled with himself and said, “God keep you, Elizabeth.”

  
This evidentially wasn’t what he had wanted to say, but Elizabeth hadn’t the emotional energy to investigate that at present. “God keep you Darcy,” said Elizabeth. They walked out, leaving Darcy where he was, a lone figure among all the dancing couples. The last, plaintive refrain seemed to trail after her: “You’ll never know if you don’t know now.”


	15. In which Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Consummate Their Union

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> amnevitah requested Colonel Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth's wedding night. 
> 
> ... you can guess what happens. 
> 
> Please note that the rating for this chapter is EXPLICIT. 
> 
> Exercise your best judgment in deciding whether or not to read on. ;)

Colonel Fitzwilliam’s bedroom—which, Elizabeth self-consciously reminded herself, was now her bedroom as well—was a well-appointed room, still full of light from the late spring sunset. It seemed new papered, and was crammed all with books and prints of scenes from abroad. Elizabeth looked eagerly about it, from the two large windows overlooking the gardens, to the banked fire and the delicate French chairs by it, to her trunks by the foot of the bed, to the bed itself, with its snow-white linens and floating, white canopy. She wondered if military tents resembled the canopy.

There was a click behind her. Elizabeth turned early to see Colonel Fitzwilliam shutting the door and taking his sword belt off to deposit it in an umbrella stand. Her heart thrilled within her. She was married, and married to her soulmate. One hoped of course, but she was too canny, too shrewd, too much Mr. Bennett’s daughter, to count on marrying her soulmate as a certainty. But here he was, so handsome in his regimentals, with her ring on his finger—

Elizabeth flung herself into her husband’s arms, and kissed him. The touch of his lips, the way his epaulettes scratched lightly at her palms when she put her hands to his shoulders, the warmth of his hands on her waist— she tried to take it all in at once, not to be distracted by the whole by its parts but she could not. She could not entirely believe this was real. Elizabeth felt dizzy with surprise and pleasure. She had found her soulmate! She had married him! How was it possible to be so happy? She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him again and again, her heart thrilling within her. He was hers now, and hers forever. Colonel Fitzwilliam did not seem to mind being pressed to the door; indeed he responded eagerly to her kiss, hands roaming from her waist to her back, her shoulder blades.

“Oh my Lizzy,” he kept whispering to her, “oh my dear Bennet.”

Elizabeth was too breathless to reply, too caught up in the wonder that this man, so truly a gentleman in manner and in disposition, whose courtesy, whose kindness, whose playfulness and intelligence was so evident in all he did, was  _ hers _ . Her husband, to have and to hold, forever and ever. “Oh I love you,” she managed, winding her arms about his neck, running her hands through his hair, “my dear Fitzwilliam.  _ Richard. _ ”

She felt she ought to protest when he picked her up in such a way she was obliged to put her legs about his waist lest she tumble to the ground, but she didn’t. It still felt wicked to allow him this liberty, to let him grab the underside of her thighs, to be pressed so tightly to him.

Colonel Fitzwilliam fumbled at the lock to the door and as soon as it clicked home, carried her to the bed. He set her down carefully, so that she had the wall to lean against even as he lay atop her. Elizabeth was restlessly eager for him, without knowing at all how to express it or what to do next. She knew the fundamentals of the act—she could scarce avoid it, living in the country, and on an estate with a home farm so near the great house—and the practicalities of it had been laid out with surprising explicitness from her mother and aunt, but she could not bring herself to be so bold, so unmannerly as to demand he touch her where she was vaguely sure she would like to be touched, or to ask in what manner they might proceed.

But the enthusiasm of her embraces had encouraged him; his hands began to wander, to make free of her person, but with such gentleness behind each caress that she was was warmed and pleased by this novelty rather than made alarmed by it. Elizabeth could not keep still, could not help but sigh and shift against him, until her gown and petticoats were in great disorder, and Colonel Fitzwilliam put a hand to her knee. He placed the other on the bedspread, by her hip, to help him balance.

“Do you like this, Lizzy?” he asked, stroking the silk of her stocking, looking almost a little anxious. “I know—it is all new to you—I do not want this evening to be anything but a source of pleasure for you, in this moment and in its remembrance.” 

“Oh yes,” she said eagerly, “more than I ought, no doubt! I like this extremely. Will you kiss me again, Richard?”

Colonel Fitzwilliam obliged her, his hand upon her knee; then he carefully trailed his fingers to her inner thigh and made gradual advances upwards. When he was very near his destination, he paused and pulled his lips from hers, saying again, “My dear, you know at any time if you wish me to stop I will.”

Elizabeth flushed scarlet and said, “And—and if I wish you to proceed?”

He smiled. She had always liked his smile, how his eyes crinkled at the corners; indeed, upon first seeing him she had concluded that though he was not handsome, his smile made up for it. Elizabeth could not now recall how she ever thought him unhandsome. She prefered Colonel Fitzwilliam to any man living. If Adonis had happened to cross her path, she was sure she would merely ask the fellow, handsome as he was, where her husband might be. “Then of course I shall oblige you. It is a husband’s duty to please his wife.”

“It still seems strange to me we are married,” said Elizabeth.

“We have only been married half-a-day, dear wife,” he replied, still gently stroking high up on her inner thigh. “It is new to me, but I cannot deny the pleasure I take our being married. I am not sure how many times I managed to work the phrase, ‘my wife,’ into conversation, but I am sure I was insufferable about it. I could not help it.”

Elizabeth tried the phrase, “Dear husband,” and found it strange and marvelous. 

Colonel Fitzwilliam smiled brilliantly at her and at last touched her where she had wished. Elizabeth felt inflamed beyond the power of modesty, unable provide even the token resistance she felt she ought; she instead shuddered and said, “Oh! Oh yes,” in breathless accents. At first she could not distinguish between what he was doing— so long as he continued to stroke her, she was flushed with happiness, restless with pleasure— but gradually she began to tell that some movements excited her more than others. It was a struggle to express this, which Colonel Fitzwilliam understood, and he seemed contented to be guided by her breathing; to continue on with that which caused her breath to catch in her throat, and to change that which did not. Occasionally he would ask if this touch or that was acceptable to her; and Elizabeth was at first flustered by this, until she realized she could just let out a faint noise of assent. This was easier. And as she grew easier, she grew more excited. How strangely concentrated this hitherto unfelt pleasure was, how strange a tension seemed to have taken hold of her. She hung about his neck, full up with love for him, certain only that there was too much space between them, that she must be closer to him or die from wanting. 

This affected him more than she thought it would; he sped up his caress and even ventured to essay her opening. His finger slid in more easily than Elizabeth would have thought, and when she involuntarily clamped down on it, it felt so strangely good she let out a soft, “Oh!” of surprise. 

“Lizzy,” he said, kissing her, his cultivated accent quite breaking in his passion, “Lizzy, I love you. God! How I love you!” 

The rapidity of his attentions so increased Elizabeth found herself helpless to do anything but receive the pleasure he was determined to steer her towards, and she tumbled headlong into ecstasy. She seized around him, feeling the pleasure radiate up through her with almost unbearable intensity, and then sagged against the wall feeling utterly spent. Colonel Fitzwilliam shifted so that he had a hand on either side of her, and his—Elizabeth’s mind skittered about trying to find an appropriate word, and she settled for thinking that her husband was pressed up against her. ‘What an odd idea,’ she thought to herself. 

Elizabeth felt transported, a little confused, almost out of herself, as dimming pleasure went shivering through her; but the slow motion as he pressed gently against her, moving against her very like how he had touched her not a minute ago.

Both aroused and embarrassed, Elizabeth sat up and put her arms about his neck and kissed him. He seemed to sense the desire for reassurance implicit in the way she clung to him, the fevered uncertainty of her kiss, and pulled back only to say, “Oh Lizzy, oh my dear—I cannot begin to say how much I love you.”

“But you do love me?” Elizabeth asked, meaning to tease, but sounding anxious, almost frightened to her own ears.

“I love you,” he replied, voice and smile soft. “Shall I show you?”

She turned up her face to be kissed and, to her giggling pleasure, he dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. She laughed and protested, and was given a kiss on her cheek, her temple— then, thrillingly, her jaw, her neck, her collarbone—she shivered and said impulsively, “I hadn’t known it could be… that it was like… like this. Oh.”

He kissed her breast through the transparent gauze of her kerchief. “My dear, this is only the beginning. I promise I shall make you as happy as you make me.”

“You have already done so; you need only love me.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed and sat up, to take off his boots. “You are remarkably easy to satisfy. I am glad of it.”

She watched him take these off, and work on the buttons of his uniform coat in an odd mix of curiosity, anticipation, fear, and desire.

After they had signed the marriage articles they had been granted a little liberty to walk off on their own, unchaperoned, and that, of course, had caused them to find an unoccupied part of the stables and engage in blatant improprieties. They had gone farther than they ever had before; she had snuck her hands under his coat and waistcoat, to grip the fine muslin of his shirt, and he had cupped her breasts in his hands and taken her on his lap, so she could feel how much he wanted her. But even then they had merely mussed each others’ clothing. Colonel Fitzwilliam had been very concerned they not anticipate their vows, or do anything they would later regret they had not saved. Elizabeth did regret that she had not seen him in his shirtsleeves before. She thought he looked remarkably good and could not help but flush and smile as he tossed his best uniform coat carelessly away from him, so that he could catch her up in his arms and kiss her again.

“Ah Lizzy,” he said, showering kisses across her face, “I am so happy to have found you.”

Elizabeth laughed and twined her arms about him. “You take to calling me Lizzy so easily! In my head you are still Colonel Fitzwilliam.”

He laughed. “Fitzwilliam is still a sweet name to you, I imagine.”

“The sweetest,” she replied. They kissed for a long, languid time, carefully becoming acquainted with each others’ bodies through their clothes, and then Colonel Fitzwilliam made gentle moves to undress her. He undid the knot of her gauzy fichu, a thoroughly insubstantial affair that Elizabeth did not miss, especially as Colonel Fitzwilliam nuzzled her décolletage then, trailing kisses in a way that caused the tense excitement of before begin to coil itself between her legs once more. 

Colonel Fitzwilliam was not in the least imposing, bootless, in his shirtsleeves, his hair rumpled from where she had run her hands through it; and his smile was so soft, his manner so loving Elizabeth felt no fear in undressing. She asked breathlessly if he would unbutton her and he did, peeling her gown down her arms, and then looked quizzically at her stays.

Elizabeth blushingly turned her back to him. “You undo the knot and loosen them.”

“Ah.”

“It’s easier if I stand up—“

“Oh? Let me get out of your way, my dear.” He busied himself with the buttons of his waistcoat as she attempted to stand, and instead tangled her legs in her unbuttoned gown.

Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed and caught her by the forearms, his waistcoat only half- unbuttoned. “Careful, my dear.”

“I cannot seem to help but keep falling for you,” she teased him, smiling up at him.

He kissed her and set her to rights. His look was tender and affectionate. “I fell for you with such dizzying rapidity, Lizzy. You really ought to scold me for intemperance.”

“How can I when it has brought me such joy? Oh! I cannot stand. Will you help me?”

“Gladly.” Colonel Fitzwilliam freed her from the tangle of her gown and, a little confused by her undergarments, managed to untie her petticoat instead of her stays, and was momentarily baffled when that fell to the ground. 

Elizabeth was more relieved than otherwise that he did not have great familiarity with women’s undergarments. He had told her he’d had lovers before, a thought that had both discomposed and reassured her. Her shyness about her own ignorance warred with her gratitude that at least there was someone who knew what ought to happen in more than just the abstract. “Richard,” she said, a little anxiously, clinging to the bedpost as he essayed her stays, “do you… I mean, you have done this before with…?”

“With both sexes,” he admitted. “But not for some time. I’m not really inclined to rakishness, my dear;  _ this _ — with one person, forever, I mean— is all I have ever really wanted.” 

She leaned her forehead against the bedpost and admitted, “I am… I am relieved about that.”

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

She felt her stays part, and then, when they too had fallen to the ground, a kiss on the nape of her neck. She shuddered. “I won’t— that is, I do not think I could disappoint you; a wife is supposed to come to her marriage with virtue and ignorance intact—”

“My dear!” Colonel Fitzwilliam exclaimed, wrapping his arms about her waist, and pressing a kiss behind her ear. “No,  _ never _ , pray do not entertain such a thought. I love you. You are my soulmate. Why should I be disappointed that everything has worked out for us exactly as we were always told it would? Well,” he amended, resting his chin on the top of her head, “in my case, matters are more complicated. There were times… many times, really, I wished I was other than I was, but I am….”

“I would not change you,” Elizabeth said fiercely, tilting her head up to look at him. “I love  _ you _ , Richard, for all you are, and it is only because of that I am worried I shall not please you.” She risked a kiss to his chin, then whirled about, hands at the small of her back, gripping the bedpost for reassurance. Elizabeth liked him like this, disheveled and looking at her as if she was something wondrous. “It may reassure you to know that my chief failing is vanity, and I have been preening and crowing to myself that out of all the world, not just half of it, you saw me and liked me, and thought—very quickly, according to you!— that I was your soulmate.”

It did reassure him; she saw it in the way the usual tension of his straight shoulders—a product, she had always thought, of early military training—drained away, the softening of his expression, the rough, low way he spoke her name as he moved towards her, cupped her jaw, and kissed her. His tongue slid against hers, in a dizzingly wonderful way, his hand trailed down from her jaw to cup her breast. Colonel Fitzwilliam smoothed his thumb over its stiffening peak until she involuntarily whimpered.  

“Will you let me touch you, Lizzy?” he whispered, gently squeezing her breast. “Without your shift, I mean.”

“I—I like what you are doing, but I… that is, you are still mostly dressed….”

“Ah, I have been behindhand,” he said, apologetically, and, kissing her still, made short work of his own clothes, until he was only in his shirt before her. “There. We are almost even. Shall I help you with your stockings?”

This she was glad to agree to, and was amused and delighted to have Colonel Fitzwilliam kneel before her, tenderly and carefully undoing the ribbons of her shoes and her garters, before relieving her of them entirely. He ran his hands up her calves, to the back of her knees, which made her laugh involuntarily.

“Ticklish, are we?”

“Perhaps!”

“Lizzy dear, is that an invitation?”

“A challenge, rather!”

It was one he met well and she was soon breathless with laughter; clinging to him, forgetting her nerves at being so scantily clad, inclined more towards an excited curiosity than any kind of fear. They tumbled backwards onto the bed, and Elizabeth felt a stab of anticipation, edged faintly with worry, as Colonel Fitzwilliam lay heavy atop and her, his bare leg pressing between her thighs. She felt a frisson of unspeakable excitement to be so pinned.

He dipped his head down to kiss her again and she responded eagerly to it, until he shifted again and put a hand to the ribbon at her wrist.

Elizabeth stilled suddenly, realizing the import of what she was about to do, of what she had already done, of what she had agreed to that day. All the change of it seemed absurd in scale, and she thought to herself, ‘what on earth is the matter with you, Miss Lizzy? You’ve been taught since you were a child that you were put on earth specifically for this; that you had to keep yourself for your soulmate. He is, he has proved that he is. Why are you now being shy?’

After a moment, Colonel Fitzwilliam’s hand stilled on her wrist and he pulled back to look down at her. “Do you… prefer to keep it on, Lizzy?”

The sleeves of his own shirt had ridden up, she could see the ‘Bennet’ on his left wrist, very clearly. Elizabeth shifted under him so that she could look at his mark more fully and even dared to kiss it. The air left Colonel Fitzwilliam’s lungs as if she had punched it out of him and he roughly gathered her up to hold her.

“Sorry, my dear,” he said, “I need a little pause; I think you may too, however. It is— it is a great deal to take in.”

Elizabeth could not say how grateful she was that he had stopped to hold her. 

She hid her face against his shoulder and squeezed her eyes shut.

Elizabeth felt this to be an odd and even a stupid thing to do. For the first time in her life she had the liberty to be open to a man, to steadfastly experience the pleasure both her mother and Mrs. Gardiner had assured her was her marital right, and she could only bear it by hiding her eyes. What exactly was she hiding from?

Colonel Fitzwilliam loved her, he was her husband, her  _ soulmate _ —God had ordained this, this pleasure was surely proof of it, that this was the right thing to do, but after spending nearly one and twenty years being curious about this (and, during the days of her engagement, achingly so), avoiding this, being told that to give into this particular desire was the worst thing she could possibly do not to herself, but to her family—oh, the two truths seemed incompatible! She pressed her forehead into his crumpled shirt collar, and made an annoyed noise. He immediately began stroking the back of her head with his fingertips, from the curls at the crown of her head, down to the nape of her neck. 

“What’s wrong, Lizzy?” asked Colonel Fitzwilliam softly. “Talk to me, my dear.”

“I am sorry,” she said, feeling wretched. “I don’t know what’s come over me all of a sudden.”

“We’re married Lizzy,” he said. He was gentle, he was so gentle with her, in his tone, in his touch; Elizabeth reminded herself that she loved this man, had chosen this man, known him to be her soulmate, for his kindness, for his courtesy, his respect for her feelings and the feelings of those around him. “The church holds that we were put on this earth for each other, for the love and support of each other. There is nothing wrong in this or to feel guilty about.  Though I know it is… it is so new, it must be at least a little frightening for you.”

“Not frightening,” she said, “more—oh! You shall roundly abuse me for my stupidity, but I have been told so often  _ not  _ to allow you liberties, now that I am allowed them, I feel… a little overawed by it. Am I really doing this? Am I really allowing it? You would think the ceremony we went through would absolve me from any guilt, but I….”

“Your feelings are fairly common, my dear Bennet. Pardon, my dear Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”

“Really? How do you know?”

“Julian gave me some advice, as I was dressing this morning. Marjorie had a little trouble, when they were first married; and then Sybil told me later on that when she was first married she was wretchedly confused. I teased her a little about it and then Arabella roundly abused me for my stupidity, in thinking that their experiences were the exception, rather than the rule. I was told that most women are married in ignorance, and even those that are not have some confusion about now being heartily encouraged to do something they've been warned in the strongest possible terms never to attempt before they were married. One does not get over that sort of training very easily. Or so it seems to me.” 

“I— perhaps it might be easier if we were under the bedclothes,” said Elizabeth, though she was unsure about this. 

Still, she turned them back and settled herself against the pillows, and below the counterpane. Elizabeth pulled pins out of her hair by the handful and dropped them on the bedside table, as Colonel Fitzwilliam settled himself beside her. He observed her with a fond smile.  

“Shall I help you?” 

“Please.” 

He was not a very good hairdresser, but was so obviously pleased with himself when her hair hung in dark waves down her back, Elizabeth did not have the heart to do anything but thank and praise him. With a simple pride he let the black strands run through his fingers, spread them over her shoulders and said, admiringly, “God, Lizzy, you are lovely. I am not sure I have met a more beautiful woman in my life.”

“I regret telling you vanity was my chief failing.”

He laughed, and let her hair cascade through his spread fingers. “Well, my dear, you have justification to be vain. You are the loveliest person I have ever seen.”

Elizabeth could not help but kiss him for that. Colonel Fitzwilliam drew her into his lap, and Elizabeth blushed to feel again, how obviously, how strongly he wanted her. 

“Might I touch you under your shift?” Colonel Fitzwilliam asked, a little raggedly, “If you do not wish to take it off?”

“Yes,” she said, and was pleased she did, for the touch of his bare hand to her hips, to her waist up her ribcage, to her breasts, made her sigh with delight. Then, too, through the insufficient barriers of shift and shirt, she felt him, and thought to herself, ‘I don’t know why I was worked about about this; we aren’t even properly doing it and it already feels wonderful.’ She was not sure she had ever been so close to swooning. 

“God, I do love you,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. 

Elizabeth tentatively offered him her wrist.

He kissed the crushed white satin bow before slowly undoing it. He studied her wrist in admiration, before offering her his own. She unbuttoned his cuff and traced her name with a fingertip, beginning to feel less anxious. 

Colonel Fitzwilliam cleared his throat and said, “Lizzy, my dear, I hope you know—I would never—  _ will  _ never force you.”

She looked up from his wrist to his face quizzically. 

He was looking at her earnestly, almost worriedly and said, “If— if you do not feel entirely ready this evening, it’s no matter. We shall still be married tomorrow and the day after, and the day after that. We can wait. I have waited to know you all my life; I can wait to know you more intimately if you need more time.”  

Elizabeth could not help but be moved by this, and tried to hide the tears springing to her eyes by bringing his hand up to his cheek, and kissing his wrist. Her doubts and fears dissolved away like sugar stirred into tea. “I am afraid I shall need to go slowly,” she admitted, when she felt mistress of herself once more, “but, I… I do want this, Richard. I love you. I want you.” Then, feeling bold said, “If you take off your shirt, I could perhaps… um….”

“Why don’t I take your shift off for you?” he suggested and did so. 

Elizabeth immediately slid under the bedclothes, but Colonel Fitzwilliam tactfully followed her and said nothing when she closed her eyes and reached for him at the same time. 

She was embarrassed by her naked body, for she had never been undressed longer than the time it took to take off a shift and put on a nightgown or vice versa, but, though she kept her eyes squeezed shut, she liked the slide of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s naked body against her own, the warmth, the firm smoothness of him. She liked her body when it was against his own, how her parting flesh gave way to his clear want for her, in a way that complimented and completed her want for him. 

And God, she wanted him. The desire was inchoate, but boundless. Elizabeth felt as if she was nothing but a blush and want; she spread her legs for him and stammered out the hope he would touch her again, or at least, stammered out enough that Colonel Fitzwilliam kissed her, with a heartfelt, “Lizzy, nothing would give me greater pleasure.”

She was embarrassed at how eagerly she responded to the lightest touch of his hand, how she pressed against him and shivered with delight as his fingers probed gently at her slickness. To this he added such kisses to her neck and breasts, she very swiftly reached her peak. Before the aftershocks of this had faded, Colonel Fitzwilliam kissed her again and asked, “Are you ready, my dear?”

“Oh yes,” she said, pulling him on top of her. “Yes,  _ please _ .”

She felt him  _ there  _ and though she knew rationally it would fit, she had a brief moment of panic that it wouldn’t, or at least wouldn’t without considerable effort, and had to fight the impulse not to squeeze her legs shut. As it was, she pressed them tightly to his sides. 

“Did I hurt you?” Colonel Fitzwilliam asked anxiously, pausing. “I know— that is, I must confess I have never been with a virgin before, but I am told it is not easy for the lady the first few times, and you are rather a little thing.”

“It feels so strange,” admitted Elizabeth, coloring. “That is not merely—oh! I hardly know what I mean. Are you—“ she could not quite bring herself to either say it aloud or look between them, at where they were now joined and continued on fumblingly, “—I mean, that is… oh good God. Are you… all the way  _ in,  _ sir?”

Colonel Fitzwilliam carefully dropped to his elbows and bent to brush a kiss across the tip of her nose. “Lizzy, my dear, I love you.”

“What brought on that declaration?”

“What didn’t? I’m not sure I could say when I have ever been so charmed by another person as I am by you.” He moved to cup the top of her head in the palm of his hand and gently stroke her forehead with the pad of his thumb; she relaxed, grew comfortable and accustomed to the sensation of something new where there had been nothing, the strange pinching stretch of it. “I hope it will not alarm you very much to know that I am not, but I can go slowly if that is better for you.”

Elizabeth frankly had no idea and said, uncertainty, “Well— suppose you try? Then I shall know.”

He bent to kiss her as he slowly pressed against her— into her— what an odd thought, how strange, how—“Ouch!”

Colonel Fitzwilliam stopped at once and went back to kissing her, soft kisses all over her blushing face, before nuzzling her neck. “Does it hurt?”

“Yes, but not… not unmanageably so. It— it strikes me as so odd, that you should be inside of me, like this.”

He pulled his head up to look into her eyes. “Do you dislike it?”

“No,” said Elizabeth, flushing again. “It is only that it is new. Is it— do you like it? It isn’t painful for you at all?”

Colonel Fitzwilliam was hard put not to laugh and, after struggling with himself said, “Quite the opposite of painful, my dear. I am not sure you realize it’s common talk among men who like women that a tighter fit is a better one. Pardon me for the crudity.”

“Barracks room talk,” teased Elizabeth, though she felt cheered by this news. “Alright— slowly please.”

He gently eased himself into her. It was a painful sort of stretch, and he kissed all the while at where neck and shoulder met, to calm her, to comfort her. “There,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said breathlessly, when he was flush against her. “All in. Not too bad, is it darling?”

After a moment Elizabeth could honestly say, “Not terrible.”

“Honestly my dear,” he said in a strangled voice, “it shall be over very soon. I doubt I’m going to last long. You feel impossibly good.”

She was relieved and pleased to hear this and put her arms about his neck.

He curved his arm about her shoulders, keeping her calm, reassuring her, even as he kept her relatively still, so she would not slide into the wall as he thrust into her. Elizabeth felt faintly, when he was entirely inside her, a tentative stirring of pleasure that she thought could be stoked at some point into a flame, but what seemed to her almost more important was the sense of very deep connection, of the growing sensation of trust that rooted deep within her. She had never been— probably would never be— as vulnerable as she was now, and here she was met with reassurance, with consideration, with pleasure, with a deep and abiding love. This she tried to return as she could, kissing and caressing him, whispering her love. But she was ultimately glad when Colonel Fitzwilliam drove deeply into her and buried her face against her neck with a soft groan. 

Elizabeth winced as he withdrew, and Colonel Fitzwilliam, noticing this, breathlessly rearranged them so that he was cradling her against his chest. “God, Lizzy,” he said, after a moment. “I’m sorry that last bit wasn’t particularly pleasant for you, but my God!”

“Everything before was,” said Elizabeth, holding onto him tightly. She felt strangely vulnerable, especially since she had glimpsed what a mess of blood there was on her thighs and the sheets and  _ him  _ when he got off of her. She was delighted and suddenly full up of love when he turned and drew her atop him, and cupped her face in his hands. 

“I love you tremendously, Mrs. Fitzwilliam,” he said, kissing her. “My dear Bennet.” Another kiss. “Elizabeth.” A last one, lingering and tender. “Lizzy.”

Elizabeth laughed and blushed. “Richard! Ridiculous man.”

“Besotted man!” Colonel Fitzwilliam corrected her, reproachfully. “Ah, Lizzy, I wish there were more words than ‘I love you,’ to tell you that I love you.”

Her heart overflowed and she suddenly found she did not mind being sore now, not when she was vaguely sure it would not last very much longer, and especially since she’d had a taste of the pleasures the marital bed could bring. She pressed her inner wrist against his heart with self-conscious symbolism. She felt his lips against her hair. She felt— oh all she felt! It could not be contained by words. 

“I enjoyed it,” Elizabeth declared, though in saying so, she felt absurdly young and ignorant. “Overall. Did you?”

He laughed, not at her, but because he was happy and this was the natural way to express it. “Yes, my dear, and fancy! This is only the beginning.”


	16. In which Captains Fitzwilliam and Pascal have their first kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A tumblr anon asked: "do you have any pascal/colonel fitzwilliam fluff? anything you can spare us?!?!" and as it was my city's pride parade today, I felt moved to write something.

_June 1799._

India still seemed to Richard rich in everything, even color, and it overwhelmed him. He had gone looking for a sunset over water, in a fit of homesickness, and felt more out of place than ever. The English sunsets over the Channel were watercolor imitations of the glittering scene before him, cold and weak, often veiled in mist or gray clouds but — familiar. There was something uncanny, off putting, with all this color, undimmed, intense. Its vibrancy burned.

(Literally, too, thought Richard, and kept on his red uniform coat. The broadcloth and gold braid was oppressive in the heat, but it was better than turning a painful red himself. He’d been horribly sunburnt the first week he’d been in India, and made the mistake of playing cricket with his sleeves rolled.)

The sun was a bright ornament, suspended on a band of red-gold. It reminded him of the garlands of marigolds Richard had seen adorn Indian wedding processions. The river Kaveri glittered before him, over a golden bank, framed by palm trees, and felt wrong. He still felt, deep in his soul, that proper beaches ought to be made of gray pebbles. He decided to walk closer to the river’s edge, hoping that by standing on the beach he could avoid looking at it. As he approached the banks, Richard was surprised to see a light, graceful figure, with a military queue of dark hair and a British surgeon’s uniform coat held over one shoulder, leaning against a palm tree and smoking a cheroot.

He looked about for an alternate route, but then the figure turned.

It was Captain Pascal, cravat undone, shirtsleeves rolled, cheroot hanging from his lips. His striking profile was gilded by the setting sun, and his brown complexion took on a warmer hue than usual. He seemed to have absorbed some of the vivid beauty of the scene around him; that or the heat had distilled down all that Richard found most attractive about him, until it was as concentrated as pigment— brilliant, eye-catching, in ways that made it impossible _not_ to be moved.  

“Captain Pascal,” said Richard, stupidly, and then saluted.

Captain Pascal had been leaning his left forearm against the tree, as if he was leaning against the mantle of a fireplace in a London drawing room. He turned and removed the cheroot from his lips with his left hand. “Captain Fitzwilliam.”

His name drifted to Richard a moment, bourne aloft on a cloud of tobacco smoke, but it dissipated quickly in the hot, still air.

“I’m— I’m, er, terribly sorry,” stammered Richard. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It doesn’t necessarily follow that the interruption is unwelcome,” replied Captain Pascal, and he smiled at Richard, slow and sincere. “Come. I’m just taking in a few moments beauty before I return to the very unlovely problem of Major Spicer’s saddle sores.”

Richard smiled shyly, wanting to return the overture, and came to stand beside him. They had been alone together before, and even outside of nice, orderly chaos of the medical tents, but this felt oddly more intimate. Everyone in the regiment called them friends. They considered themselves friends. They talked and talked often, into nights that became early mornings. There was no need to feel uneasy, on edge like this. He stood at ease, legs and back straight, gloved hands clasped lightly behind his back, but felt anything _but_ easy. Captain Pascal fell back into his informal attitude, and then passed his cheroot to Richard. “It’s good against the miasmas that bring malaria.”

Richard felt himself turning red as he smoked, He was very aware of the fact that Captain Pascal’s lips had been where he now put his own.

“Take off your coat, captain,” said Captain Pascal, taking back the cherrot. “You’ll die of heatstroke.”

Richard hesitated, but took off his gloves and tucked them in his pocket, before awkwardly unbuttoning his coat. He couldn’t bring himself to take it off entirely.

“I don’t mind,” said Captain Pascal, amused. “I had to cut off your overalls, the first time I met you. Don’t you recall?”

“With painful clarity,” said Richard, tapping his thigh. “But it has healed a treat, thank you. I might not even have much of a scar.”

“Oh, I _am_ good,” said Captain Pascal.

Richard laughed. “Yes, quite.”

Captain Pascal turned to him with another smile. “But in all seriousness—it’s healing well then?”

This got them over Richard’s initial shy awkwardness, not quite successfully hidden by good manners, and soon they found themselves falling into the same ease of conversation as before. Captain Pascal’s humor was dry, but omnipresent. He seasoned the seriousness of his observations with piquant little witticisms, and it was like encountering a pepper in the curries of this country. Richard found himself relaxing enough, eventually, to take off his coat, spread it out and sit on it. Captain Pascal did the same, and soon they were side by side, their legs straight before them, as they leaned back on their hands. Perhaps it was the casual intimacy of passing the cheroot back and forth, or the distance of the camp behind them, fading into the dimness of the evening, or the personless beauty of the river and sunset before them, but Richard found himself in an oddly confessional mood.

He politely asked Captain Pascal how he had come to the army, and in response to Captain Pascal’s very standard, simple answer (an interest in the _culture_ of the army—this with an emphasis that left no doubt as to Captain Pascal’s preference for his own sex, as if Richard hadn't been carefully gathering evidence of this for the past month— and the necessity of finding work after his father and grandfather’s practice in Bloomsbury could not support a third surgeon) Richard haltingly poured out the whole of his history. The disaster of his sixteenth birthday. His mother’s frozen incredulity. His father’s shock and insistence that something must be medically wrong with him. The flying tour of every doctor on Harley Street. The suggestion that he be put in the army, where he would either be toughened up sufficiently to take his proper place as son of the Earl of Matlock, or he would find a way to be discreet about his failings. The tacit agreement all his family had to Never Speak of his mark, or his inclinations, ever again.

“My family’s very English,” Richard concluded flippantly. “You have an emotion, then you say nothing and eventually die.”

“I spent nearly all my life in England and I still don’t understand that mindset,” replied Captain Pascal. “In Jewish families— or at least in mine— you open your mouth before you even pinpoint what the emotion is.” He passed the cheroot to Richard. “I’m sorry it was like that for you. You didn’t deserve any of that. In my professional, medical opinion, as well as my personal one, I think you’re perfectly normal.”

“ _You_ think that,” said Richard, with a sigh. “Not many others do.” He drew in a long drag of the cheroot and sighed it out. “It’s not… an easy thing, to live with an ambiguous mark, like mine, not even for people who don’t bear it themselves. People don’t like ambiguity, I think.”

“Yes, because it makes them think. Most people dislike thinking. I blame a persistent rumor that it causes wrinkles.”

Richard smiled despite himself. “Do you believe that soulmarks refer to the person you are ordained by God to marry? That is— is there a… standard Jewish interpretation?”

“There isn’t a standard Jewish interpretation of anything,” said Captain Pascal dryly. “That is— most Jewish people, when asked what a soulmark is, say that it’s the name of your earthly partner. But what an earthly partner actually is, is something that rabbis have argued about since Eve’s name first appeared on Adam’s wrist, and will argue about until the sky falls into the sea. What do _you_ think?”

Richard turned to pass back the cheroot. It was nearly a stub now, and their fingers brushed. Richard glanced up from their nearly entwined hands to Captain Pascal’s handsome face. There was a wry kindness to his expression, and Richard’s mouth went dry with longing. “I… I think.”

“I am glad to hear it,” said Captain Pascal. The cheroot dropped into the sand as Captain Pascal took his hand and pulled him closer. “So few people do.”

“I think,” said Richard hesitantly. He felt himself moving inexorably closer to Captain Pascal. Their faces were very close. “I think….”

“I think _you_ think too much,” said Captain Pascal, soft and low. Somehow Richard hadn’t realized, until this point, that kissing another man was something he could actually do. It was something to be guiltily dreamt about, never spoken of, never considered except in the quiet hush of evening, when there was no one else around, when the weight of other people’s stares did not pin him down and in, into a version of himself he no longer was, if he had ever been at all. But it was easier to close his eyes, all the same.

“Don’t be afraid,” said Captain Pascal. The words ghosted, hot, against his cheek.

“I—I’m trying,” said Richard, with a soft, nervous laugh that was more breath than noise. “What should I be?”

“Just be,” said Captain Pascal, and kissed him.

He kept his eyes closed but still the light filtered in. This world was warm and rose-colored, and he let himself be filled with its beauty.


	17. In which Ensign Fitzwilliam gives Agent Croft a lift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little snippet from that WWII AU requested a while ago, written for justdreaming88 and finally tidied up.

Elizabeth parked the ambulance as far as she could into the narrow Moroccan alleyway and waited five minutes before pulling her knitting out. She was knitting socks. Rather useless in the North African heat, but all her sisters were writing about their sock patterns and Elizabeth, as second eldest, felt obligated to join in the activity and bolster on the unexpected industry of her two youngest sisters by virtue of a competition. What happened to the socks afterwards was immaterial—the point was to finish them before the others. (Generally Elizabeth's finished socks ended up in Colonel Fitzwilliam's kit bag, and he dutifully wore them, with only occasional, pointed comments that he was not so ill-paid a man as to be unable to purchase his own socks.)

She'd just managed to finish a heel when she heard a series of familiar raps on the metal side of her ambulance. Elizabeth tucked her knitting under her arm and rapped out her response, before saying, "It's open."

The back door of the ambulance swung open and someone in a long white burnous got in. Elizabeth watched their shadowy progress in her rear view mirror and cautiously gave the code word. A rough, low voice gave the correct response.

"Right-o, on we get," said Elizabeth, putting her knitting away. Then, putting her arm on the back seat and carefully backing out onto the main road, she offered, idly, "Lovely evening we're having."

"Very mild for this time of year," the person agreed, taking off the burnous. A short-haired woman in late middle age emerged. She looked weather-beaten and competent and smiled kindly at Elizabeth. "Sophie Croft. How d'ye do?"

"Quite well, thanks! Ensign Elizabeth Fitzwilliam. There's another FANY uniform in the back for you to change into, silk stockings and all. Hope it wasn't too hot for you today."

Agent Croft seemed well aware Elizabeth was not talking about the weather. "I was being followed. I think I lost them, but I can't be sure."

Elizabeth had been driving along to HQ quite sedately, but noticed several cars behind her. She kept an eye on them. Not a single one swerved away; all followed her through the elaborate, complex back alley drive Lizzy went on, through the outskirts of the city. 

“Hm,” said Elizabeth. “You’ve got some very determined friends, Agent Croft.” 

“I thought as much,” said Agent Croft. She was in shirt, skirt and stockings, and picked up two revolvers from the folds of her burnous. “D’you know how to handle one of these? I don’t know what FANY training was like.”

“Sadly devoid of firearms,” said Elizabeth, “as I really ought to keep my hands at ten and two when driving, and all I learnt at Shrewsbury College was how to analyze Shakespeare.”

“It isn’t hard with these. Cock it back and pull the trigger.” 

“Still, you’d best hold on— to the guns and to whatever you can.”

“What?”

“I do think we can shake them off." This was more difficult to do now they were out of the city and heading into the open country, but the roads were dusty; she could use this to her advantage.

Elizabeth blithely shifted gears and sped up, going into tight, swift turns off-road and then back on, hoping that the end of her unwieldy train of followers would crash, unable to correct for both her driving and the cars in front of them— and indeed, she heard the distant sounds of a skidding car and then a slam. Elizabeth began whistling ‘Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag.’ 

"Really, you drive more recklessly than my husband," said Agent Croft, clinging to the stretchers in back.

"My husband's a backseat driver too," said Elizabeth, with a sigh. "There's method to my madness, Mrs. Croft; I assure you." She glanced in the rear view mirror. “Brace yourself.” 

Elizabeth let the wheel spin between her leather gloved hands. The ambulance lurched about in a dizzying circle. Then, when she could see the road again, just before she was surrounded by dust, Elizabeth gripped the wheel and slammed down the pedal. They sped off, in a huge cloud of dust. Elizabeth chipperly turned on the wipers. When they emerged, the British encampment stood before them, the tents shining ghostly in the moonlight. Elizabeth zipped down them, slowing to halt before HQ. “Ta da! Here we are, safe as houses.”

“Hmm,” said Agent Croft, inelegantly sprawled over stretchers, and tangled in her burnous. 

“Need a mo?” Elizabeth asked. 

“If you would be so kind,” said Agent Croft.

Elizabeth sprung out of the driver's seat, lightly and happily, and waltzed into HQ.

"Hallo Lizzy," said Colonel Fitzwilliam, not looking up. “All well, I take it?” 

“How did you know it was me?” she asked. Colonel Fitzwilliam was signing letters, sitting with his left elbow on his desk, lit cigarette between two fingers; Elizabeth plucked the cigarette from his hand and took a drag, before giving it back to him.

“My aides reported an unexpected dust storm,” he said dryly, “which, when paired with the unmistakable noise of a car chase and crash, led me to believe Hurricane Lizzy was sweeping through.”

“Quite an ordinary weather pattern after all,” Elizabeth agreed.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Grim and Inexplicable Courtship of Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Elliot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12060183) by [Sunfreckle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunfreckle/pseuds/Sunfreckle)




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